Soft winters with chance of rain and warm summers, but almost always refreshed by the Atlantic breeze, are the principal macroclimatic characteristics of Fuerteventura. The annual average temperature at sea’s level is about 21º C, being the lowest ones about 10º C and the highest ones about 43º C. In the inside mountains, the lowest ones are about 6º C.
Precipitation (rain and hail rarely) fall mainly from November to March; the annual average in the whole of the island is approximately 140 l / m2. It should be noted that nowhere in Fuerteventura average rainfall exceeds from 250 l / m2. Because of its beneficial effect, they are always desired and welcomed by the population, and they barely constitute a problem for visitors, as the skies are clear for more than 300 days a year and it rarely rains more than a day.
As in all the Canary Islands, summers and most part of spring are characterized by the constant presence of north-eastern winds, which get to be really intense in some areas. During the winter, wind’s direction is more changing, being able to be north / north-eastern just as in summer, eastern (Saharan dry winds with dust hanging on the air, appearing with certain frequent) or south / south-western. These last ones are associated to Atlantic squalls which bring precipitations.
General macroclimatic conditions are changed in a local scale, basically because of the terrain. Coast areas present extreme temperatures softer than the ones in the insides of the island. Western coast or windward is more exposed to dominant wind, with also sweeps the inside prairie, loosing strength in the opposite slope, so the leeward is in general more sheltered. Some protected valleys from eastern coast, such as La Lajita, are warm and barely windy and so they have good conditions for tropical harvest.
The cloud’s see is caused by the impact of the trade winds with the mountains of the islands, which makes this maritime fresh and humid air go up, causing in a certain high (generally between 750 and 1100 m) the condensation of the moisture it contains and the following creation of the fog, a very characteristic phenomenon during the summer in the northern slopes of the central and western islands. In some localities, such as Puerto de la Cruz in Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, this cloud’s sea receives de name of “panza de burro”. In the eastern Canary Islands this effect from the trade winds is also produced, but in much more reduced geographical areas, so the topic “the trade wind passes over Lanzarote and Fuerteventura without any effect" is not true. In this last one, especially on the top part of Jandía’s mountain chain, which suddenly raises from the sea to 800 m high, and also some areas from the Betancuria’s massif and certain mountains from the north of the island (La Muda, Aceitunal), from June to August is regularly immersed in mist, essential condition for survival, in Jandía, for a type of vegetables related with the Monteverde of the western Canary Islands.
