Rise and fall of temperatures in changeable May

Joan Collins THE month of May is always changeable and this May has been no exception with record temperatures being reached, offset on occasions by much cooler weather. Only last week the high temperatures enjoyed on Monday (22nd) dropped sharply on Tuesday (23rd), Porto Pi going from 28.9 degree on the Monday to 16 on the Tuesday, a drop of 12.9 degrees. The biggest drop came in Sa Pobla where the temperature plunged 15.8 degrees from 31.5 on Monday to 15.7 on Tuesday. This came after the weathermen had been saying that record temperatures had been reached this May, exceeding the average for the last 30 years by two degrees. In the middle of May record temperatures were reached, breaking previously held records in many places. According to the director of the Balearic Meteorological Centre, Agustin Jansa, the “excessively high” temperatures in May had been due to a “predominance” of air coming from the south (Africa). He also said that “climate change” had an influence and generates these types of “big anomolies”, mainly towards the end of Spring and the start of Summer. In the whole of the Balearics temperatures were two degrees above normal, exceeding average temperatures for May. In the case of the Porto Pi Observatory in Palma the average temperature reached 20.4 degrees (2.4 above average). At Palma airport the average temperature reached 19.3 degrees (2.7 above average); on Minorca they had 18.8 degrees (1.8 above); and on Ibiza an average of 20 degrees was reached (2.2 higher than normal). The highest temperature was recorded on May 18 in Sa Pobla on Majorca, where the temperature reached 38.4 degrees. In the Port of Pollensa another record was broken on the same day with 32.9 degrees. On Minorca another record was reached on May 28 with 30.7 degrees the highest temperature recorded in Minorca in the month of May.