San Antonio Abad and Almond Flower Walks Cancelled

That Tenerife weather really isn't behaving today. Information we've gleaned, via El Cardón, is that both the annual Almond Flower Route that had been scheduled for this morning in Santiago del Teide and the Livestock Fair and Romería de San Antonio Abad in Buenavista del Norte had to be suspended.

It seems the Livestock Fair and Romería have been postponed until next Sunday, February 7th, but there's no news yet with regard to the Almond Flower walk - I guess that depends whether the rain has washed off the blossom.

Fingers crossed that the bad weather is out of the way before Carnaval.

Have you seen the Tenerife Weather?

If you're on the island, you can probably see what the weather's like already ...

For everyone else and those of you who'd like to know what the weather's going to be like tomorrow, we'd like to introduce you to our updated weather page.

We've added a few services to hopefully provide more comprehensive coverage of the things you need to know, such as live weather maps, current weather conditions; forecasts for the next 5 days for the island in general; specific forecasts (by municipal district) for the next 7 days, detailed historical weather data for various resort areas on the island, for every month of the year, to help you plan when to visit, plus general information about adverse weather warnings.

Current weather conditions and forecasts for Tenerife

Presentation of the candidates for Carnaval Queen

Last Tuesday evening the various candidates for the titles of Carnaval Queens in Santa Cruz de Tenerife this year were presented to the public in an event involving a procession through the city streets in classic cars and a bit of fanfare and a drawing to determine the order that the candidates will run in their respective galas.

This year there is, as usual, a whole army of kids going for the junior title, but only four opting for the title at the glamorous granny end. Twelve, another relatively low number, will partake in the grand gala to select the adult Carnaval Queen in Santa Cruz, which will be held on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010.

Santa Cruz Carnaval 2010 runs from 12th to 21st February.

Via: Carnaval de Santa Cruz de Tenerife

The Great Flood is coming to Tenerife

Well, you'd certainly think it was, depending on which local media outlet you decided to pay attention to. (Nothing like a bit of melodrama to surge ahead in the ratings war, even if it does leave the public in a state of panic!)

Nevertheless, the meteorological office, AEMET, are predicting that there will be an "important" orange weather alert in force on Sunday, January 31st.

This "deluge," according to Canarias Ahora will be in the region of 100 litres of water per square meter in 12 hours. (No, we don't know what that looks like either.)

The majority of the rain (contrary to the widely held belief that the north is colder and wetter), is expected on the southern elevation of the island. Strong winds are expected at the peak and snow is expected on Mount Teide this weekend.

(Good job this is expected in the south, otherwise the animals at the San Antonio Abad processions in Buenavista del Norte would need to line up two-by-two.)

UPDATE 30/01/10: The orange alert has now been extended to cover the entire island on Monday, February 1st, 2010.

Updating Tenerife's Street Maps

Victor at Villa y Puerto de Garachico reports that the post office and Grafcan (the public company who provided the [previously censored] imagery for Google) are currently collaborating on a project to revise the street maps of El Tanque, Garachico y Buenavista del Norte, according to a post office press release.

This is part of an island-wide project that began in 2004 in Santa Cruz, followed by La Orotava, to update all of the data for the territory of Tenerife.

The post office are correcting house numbers and providing data on missing street name plates, while Grafcan are providing town halls with the information so that corrections can be made and, the post office with the new plans so they can study the logistics of improving the mail delivery process.

Just think, if they get all of this organized, it may finally be possible to know one's actual, proper address in Tenerife - something that is currently quite rare.

On the negative side, anything that smacks of efficiency could be said to be ruining the time-honoured, traditional way of doing things on the island.

In truth, I think this indicates that Tenerife is missing me. We had a perfectly good system going while I lived in the district: if the post lady didn't know where something was, or if a letter was addressed to a "foreign sounding" name, she just brought it to see if I could translate/locate/solve it!

Fiestas of San Antonio Abad 2010

This coming Sunday, January 31st 2010, the town of Buenavista del Norte holds it's annual Livestock Fair and Romería (translates loosely to walking piss-up) in honour of Saint Anthony Abbot, who, amongst other things, looks after the spiritual needs of farm animals and pets.

Oh, how we miss these occasions to see all the lovely animals; horses, cattle, goats, dogs, ferrets, chickens in baskets, iguanas on leads, doggies getting pony rides ... and, by mid-afternoon, a whole wall-to-wall (or curb-to-curb) carpet of freshly produced manure.

The Livestock Fair, as usual, will be held in the ambitiously named Recinto Ferial (Fairs' Enclosure) - it's a patch of waste ground - in the Triana area of Buenavista del Norte (see map), starting sort of mid-morning.

The procession is around the middle of the day, more or less, give or take a couple of hours, and will proceed down the main streets to the square and church, where the animals will be blessed for another year.

Click here for more of our photos from previous years

Los Silos held their celebrations last week, as did La Matanza (read Andrea Montgomery's account of the latter to confirm it's the fiesta of fertilizer, strange pets & cheap booze.) We noticed that at last week's event at Los Silos - there's a slideshow of images currently displayed on the front of the Radio Isla Baja website - that the lady with the turkey on a lead was there again, but this time she was accompanied only by a chicken (is this a downgrade, due to the crisis?) We don't want to speculate what happened to the turkey in the interim!

Tenerife in January

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Arrival of the King

Whilst in the UK, the Christmas season is well and truly over, as January begins in Spain, the biggest celebration is yet to come, with the arrival of the Three Kings on January 5th, the Eve of Epiphany. On the night of January 5th each year is the much anticipated Parade of the Three Kings in towns and villages all over Spain and the Canary Islands, whose schedule is rivaled only by that bloke in the red suit who already passed by on December 24th. They bring the gifts for the children, in a colorful tradition that is much more in keeping with the original story. This image shows Rey Gaspar arriving in the town of Garachico on his camel.

Arrival of the King

Arrival of the King

Arrival of the King

 

Tenerife Weather in January

Tenerife features the lowest temperature 'difference' between summer and winter for anywhere in the world. The minimum and maximum annual average air temperatures in Tenerife are about 15C in winter and 24C in summer.

January Averages	Tenerife	UK
Daily hours of sunshine	5.9	1.6
Daytime temperature C	17.9	6.6
Sea temperature C	19	-
Days with rain	5	13.4

In January, you should enjoy an average of 5.9 daily hours of sunshine in Tenerife (in contrast to an optimistic 1.6 hours in England).

The average daytime temperature in January in Tenerife is listed as 17.9 degrees centigrade. This is, of course, an average for the entire island. And, no matter where you are on the island, it is sure to be better than the English equivalent, given as a nippy 6.6 degrees centigrade.

The sea temperature in Tenerife in January averages at 19C.

Although there are an average of 5 days with rain in January, this means any amount of rain from a short sharp shower. Better than the 13.4 days in the UK.

Tenerife Fiestas in January

The first festival of the year is, of course, for New Year's itself. The bells may be at midnight, but the party doesn't start proper until the wee small hours and carries on until dawn. For this, you need new clothes and 12 "lucky grapes".

On the evening of January 5th (the eve of Epiphany) is one of the biggest events on the Canary Islands' calendar, with the arrival of Los Reyes Magos (The Three Kings), who are responsible for gift distribution in Spain. This is much bigger than Christmas and involves wonderful pageants and parades through the towns.

Around the middle of January, in various towns, including; Arona, Los Silos, La Florida in La Orotava and Buenavista del Norte, are the fiestas of San Antonio Abad, the high spot of which is when the animals are brought into town to be blessed - and "bless" the streets with manure!