The signs of Autumn in Madeira, finally, intensified in the late afternoon of this Thursday, with the occurrence of significant precipitation, thunderstorms and a sudden cooling of the air temperature, which in the highest points of the island of Madeira actually fell as sleet and hail, as evidenced by the image captured this late afternoon in the Pico Ruivo area.
In Funchal, the cooling down in the late afternoon was also notorious… and felt, with the temperature dropping by more than 3 ºC at dusk. At the Lido station, it went from 21.1 ºC, at 5 pm, to 17.8 ºC, at 6 pm.
The precipitation that had seemed to have been removed from the south coast of Madeira for a long time, fell heavily in the Santa Cruz area. The extreme amount in just one hour reached the yellow warning value (16.8 liters per square meter/mm) at the IPMA weather station at Madeira Airport. Also in the Areeiro area, the two meteorological stations, Pico do Areeiro and Chão do Areeiro, recorded values in ‘yellow’ for the one-hour interval, with 12.6 mm and 10.5 mm, respectively.
The highest season, Pico do Areeiro, was also the one that registered today (until 7 pm) the lowest minimum air temperature (2.7 ºC).