What has been the lowest temperature ever recorded in Spain?
To find the day when the earth literally froze in our country, you don’t have to go back to a very distant time. In fact, it was very recently. At the beginning of 2021, coinciding with the historic Filomena storm. The Northwest Peninsular Meteorological Association (Noromet) recorded then, specifically in the early morning of January 7, a temperature of -35.4º in the Vega de Liordes, an area of the Picos de Europa National Park in León.
Snowy mountains in the Pyrenees of Lleida. | Shutterstock
This very low temperature thus broke the record set just one day earlier at the Clot del Tuc de la Llança weather station in Lleida. In this case, the mercury was -34.1º. However, none of these data is recognized by the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), so it is not an official record.
The official spokesman of this agency pointed out in an article published in La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper, that the Aemet “not being the owner of stations such as Clot de la Llança and Vega de Liordes, nor being responsible for their maintenance or calibration, cannot give official status to these data“. However, the spokesman thanked the work of associations outside the Aemet with the following words: “It is outstanding the work done by various associations of meteorology enthusiasts in deploying and maintaining observation networks that allow a better understanding of the weather in our country”.
According to official data, to find the lowest temperature reached in Spain you would have to go back to February 2, 1956. On that day the thermometer reached 32º below zero at the now defunct Pyrenees station Estany Gento, in Lleida. While the lowest temperature recorded in a homeland city was 30º below zero in Fuentes Claras, Teruel. It was on December 17, 1983.
Vega de Liordes, León. | Shutterstock
In any case, Vega de Liordes is an area that tends to reach extremely low temperatures at specific times during winter. Thus, this enclave has exceeded -30º below zero on several occasions. This is due to a natural phenomenon that occurs in the area, known as cold air pools. Due to the morphology of the terrain, the cold air tends to accumulate in the valley as if it were a pool. If snow is added to the equation, voilà: we already have a pool of cold air.
