The Latest Spanish Property News from Kyero.com
August 3rd, 2007
If you’re looking for a property somewhere sunny, Tenerife is a clear winner.
Spain’s National Statistics Institute has revealed the warmest, wettest and sunniest parts of the country for 2006. Given their location off the coast of Africa it’s no surprise that the Canary Islands have come out top in several categories. The Canary Islands are the only part of Spain to have a genuine year-round warm season (although much of the southern mainland is far, far warmer than Britain even in winter and so is still pleasant if you want to escape the November drizzle).
Tenerife was the star performer, with the highest average temperature in 2006 (21.8 degrees centigrade) and the most sunshine too (nearly 3,565 hours in the year, or almost ten hours every day). That said, the sun was shining on Izana, high up on El Teide, Spain’s highest mountain, which was one of the coldest parts of Spain in 2006. The warmer parts of Tenerife ‘only’ managed 8.6 hours of sun a day! Lanzarote was a close runner-up in the temperature stakes, and Rota Army Base in Cadiz was the sunniest mainland destination with 3,010 hours of sun during the year. The Canaries also had the lowest rainfall, which is perhaps not good news for the islands’ farmers but did mean people were able to enjoy rain-free holidays. Fuerteventura airport had only 63.1mm of rain in the whole of 2006. Lanzarote and Santa Cruz de Tenerife were the next lowest, with about twice the rainfall of Fuerteventura.
Where should you avoid if you don’t like the cold and wet? Owing to altitude, Spain’s inland provinces can be cold. Puerto de Navacerrada ski station in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains was the coldest place in the country, averaging a temperature of just 7.9 degrees in the whole year. Izana on Tenerife was nearly as chilly. Anyone who’s ever visited Galicia will be unsurprised to know that Labacoa near Santiago de Compostela was the wettest place in Spain, with well over two metres of rain landing on the town in 2006. Other Galician towns were nearly as soggy. The least sunny areas were all further along the Costa Verde, with Asturias, Bilbao and Cantabria airports all being less than half as sunny as Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
There’s more to living in Spain than endless sun, of course, but if you’re craving the warmth and light or want to invest in property in a location which will attract tenants year-round Tenerife is clearly the place to buy.
