Today we welcome winter. Just a few hours ago it arrived. Its official time of entry has been at 11:44 in the peninsula and it opens with some storms still active with strong winds that cause great waves and intense rains in the Balearic Islands.
The State Meteorological Agency still has an orange alert in place for rain and wind on the islands of Mallorca and Menorca. The worst is over, but rainfall is still expected to reach around 100 liters per square meter in just 12 hours. Strong waves will reach heights of up to 4 or 5 meters.
The rest of the peninsula is experiencing lighter rainfall and is no longer under alert . However, cloudy skies are expected in northern Galicia, the Cantabrian coast, and the eastern Canary Islands.
As for the winter of 2016-2017, what can we expect? Well, we have several astronomical events that will occur during this winter, which will last approximately 88 days and 23 hours. In our morning skies, the planets Jupiter and Saturn will predominate , while in the evening, Venus, Mars, and Uranus will be prominent. If you want to learn more about this phenomenon, you can consult our winter forecast . This winter will be very interesting for observing the effects of the weather in various regions, including ice trends in the Arctic.
As we know, the arrival of winter means that today is the shortest day of the year. In Madrid, for example, the day will last only 9 hours and 17 minutes. If we compare this to the longest day of the year last June, which lasted 15 hours and 3 minutes, this seasonal change has several effects, such as those explained in our winter curiosities , which may surprise us.
We will also have eclipses this winter. Between February 10th and 11th, there will be a penumbral lunar eclipse visible in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Weather permitting, it may even be visible in Spain. This eclipse is a very rare and special event called a "penumbral eclipse." Its name comes from the fact that at its peak, the entire lunar disk will be completely immersed within the penumbra. This phenomenon will be interesting in the context of other astronomical events, which you can read about in our article on the winter solstice.
