Spain is a country with a very marked orography. It is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, so many types of wind are distinguished.
The most famous are the Levante, the Tramontana and the Poniente.
Today in Valencia….
A good day to work on the Kompuda. To revise a homepage and to clean it in the life mobile.
The Levant
The area of origin is the western Mediterranean Sea between Spain (the east coast is called the Levant) and the North African coast. The wind blows from the east (easterly wind) in a westerly direction. Bordered by the Sierra Nevada to the north and the Atlas Mountains to the south, the wind is accelerated and forced through the Strait of Gibraltar, only to lose energy again in the Atlantic. The Levant can be observed at irregular intervals throughout the year. As a rule, this phenomenon appears every two to three weeks with a duration of three to five days. The Levant is strongest between May and October. The highest speeds are reached in the Strait of Gibraltar.
Surfers and kiters take advantage of this wind on the Costa de la Luz between Tarifa and Cádiz.
The Poniente
Poniente (from Spanish poner ‘to set’, ‘to place’ or ‘to lay’ where the sun ‘sits’, i.e. sets) is the westerly wind on the southern Spanish and northern Moroccan coasts. It is the opposite of the Levante, the east wind, or the Tramontana/Terral, the north wind with foehn influence.
The Poniente is usually a light wind on the southern Spanish and northern Moroccan Atlantic coast, but colder compared to the Levante because it comes from the ocean.
However, on the east coast of Spain, the Poniente is perceived as warmer than on the west coast, as it heats up as it crosses the Iberian Peninsula. The Poniente blows into the Mediterranean Sea between the Sierra Nevada and the Atlas Mountains.
On the Mediterranean coast, the Poniente appears as a warm and hot wind in summer, as it touches land coming from the Atlantic, heats up due to the continental climate until it meets the Mediterranean coast again.
The Tramontane
The Tramontane is a wind on the French Mediterranean coast, in Languedoc from the mouth of the Rhône (Camargue) to the Pyrenees, and in Catalonia to the south. It is a downwind that blows over the mountains of the Massif Central or the Pyrenees towards the sea.
This distinguishes it from the Mistral and the Cers, which also blow from the land towards the sea, but through the Rhône Valley and from the Lauragais through the valley of the Aude. So these two are not fall winds.
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