The Guadalmar buoy recorded 15.5 degrees this Friday, the lowest water temperature in August and the coldest along the entire Spanish coast. The previous record of 15.6 degrees was set last Tuesday.
The sea of Málaga has once again broken its own record for minimum temperature in August. The buoy located off Guadalmar marked 15.5 degrees this Friday, surpassing the 15.6 degrees recorded last Tuesday, which in turn exceeded the 16.3 degrees of August 2014.
According to data from the Portus tool by Puertos del Estado, early in the morning this gauge recorded the coldest temperature in the country. Other buoys along the Spanish coast recorded much higher values: Valencia (25.47), Tarragona (27.40), Barcelona II (26), Palos (26.86), Golfo de Cádiz (20.70), Cabo Silleiro (20.97), Villanos-Sisargas (18.56), Estaca de Bares (21.19), Cabo de Peñas (21.01), Pasaia (23.40), and Tenerife Sur (24.19).
Meteorology expert José Luis Escudero, in his blog for Diario SUR 'Tormentas y Rayos', explained that this drop seems to be short-lived: "Everything points to us starting September with a significant recovery in water temperature, with values that could rise back above 21-22 ºC".
After reaching the new minimum, in the next measurement the temperature rose by a tenth of a degree, so it is expected that throughout the day the water will warm up somewhat. In recent days, Málaga has experienced cool days on land as well, despite the prevailing terral and poniente winds.
Physicist Manuel Vargas from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography in Málaga points to a phenomenon of upwelling of cold waters as the main cause. "There is no doubt that this is upwelled water. The question is whether this upwelling is local, meaning it has occurred along the Málaga coast, or if it is influenced by the upwelling that usually occurs in the Strait, with its cold waters then transported by the current," he noted. Vargas adds that wave action could be a third factor: the waves mix the waters and distribute the heat from the surface layer into a thicker layer, which would explain the decrease at the surface and the increase in temperature between 10 and 30 meters deep.
This cooling will not have repercussions on the atmosphere, according to the director of Aemet in Andalucía, Juan de Dios del Pino: "It could be significant if combined with some atmospheric event, like a dana or any other cold air mass in the upper troposphere (from 5 to 12 km). But nothing like that is expected in the near future. It may produce fog or low clouds but nothing significant".
This episode does not contradict the marine heatwave that has been affecting Málaga since May. This summer, water temperatures have reached record peaks of up to 28 degrees, consistently sitting between 4.5 and 5 degrees above the usual average values.
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