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Miscellaneous Use this area ONLY if you can't find a suitable home for your topic. We'll create a new area if necessary and reserve the right to move topics to more suitable areas. Only post regarding the Pollensa area. This is not a forum for general discussion.

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  • 7 Post By Sparky
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  #1  
Old 16-07-2014, 09:57
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Default Mallorcan winds.

I found this very interesting post on Andrew Ede's blog :- alcudiapollensa: A Short History Of Wind, i hope you don't mind me sharing it on the forum Andrew but i thought some of our members would enjoy reading it, i certainly did .

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The shipping forecast for the bay of Alcúdia at this time of the year varies little from day to day. Its lack of variance doesn't prevent it, though, from saying that winds will be "variable". They are only light winds until some time not long after midday. From then, the winds pick up and become predominantly north-east. If you go to the beach along the bay, you will know this for yourself. You can pretty much set your watch according to when the wind increases. It's getting towards time for lunch.

Though the north-easterly occurs almost every afternoon, it is, and despite the variability of the shipping forecast, the southerlies which dominate in summer. The north-easterly is welcome. It may cause panic if it suddenly blows in and uproots beach umbrellas, it may be annoying in that it throws grains of sand and small pieces of beach detritus on to you, but it is cooling. If there were only southerlies and only African air, afternoons on the beach would be as stifling as they are inland, where the north-easterly rarely penetrates.

Mallorca is sun, sea and beach, but it is also wind. And not just one wind. The eight winds of the Mediterranean are so much a part of Mallorca's existence that they lend their titles to names of streets, to bars and restaurants and even to entire mountain ranges. The northerly tramuntana dominates in winter, along with its north-westerly neighbour, the mestral. The north-easterly gregal is less evident, but it blows nonetheless and can be cold and fierce, bringing with it rain and snow. In summer, it is more benign, more welcome. It lives up more to the summery implications of its meaning from the Latin "graegalis" - coming from Greece.

Though the summer gregal blows each day in the bay, it typically goes no further than the coast. Occasionally it can, if it has enough force. And if it does, the chances are that it encounters a different wind. Eight winds of the Mediterranean there are, but there is a ninth wind in Mallorca. Or different ninth winds, to be more accurate. The brisas marinas, the sea breezes peculiar to Mallorca. They have a collective name - embat - an atmospheric phenomenon caused by the contrasting daytime heat of the interior and the comparative coolness of the sea, which is both predictable and unpredictable. It can go in different directions and come from different coastal areas. Hence, there can be different winds - the brisas marinas - not just the one.

The eight winds, which in clockwise order starting with the tramuntana (the north wind) are gregal, llevant, xaloc, migjorn, llebeig (or garbi), ponent and mestral, were depicted in the "rose" of winds created by the father and son team of Abraham and Jehuda (aka Jafuda) Cresques in the latter part of the fourteenth century. The Cresques were responsible for the "Atlas Catalan", which is held in the French national library, and the rose was one aspect of this mediaeval cartographic masterpiece.

The Cresques were Mallorcan Jews. Jafuda certainly converted to Christianity, taking the name Jaume Riba, though Abraham probably didn't convert; the persecution of Jews in Mallorca was something that started after Abraham died. Their atlas, also known as a "mapamundi" (a map of the world as they knew it), was worked on from 1375. The Cresques received some payment from the Aragon crown for their work, but the atlas was donated to the French king, Charles VI, in 1381. It wasn't until the start of the nineteenth century that it was discovered, lurking unknown in the national library. While the map itself was of huge but seemingly unappreciated importance, the rose of the winds was also hugely important. Though the names on the Cresques' original were not identical to those of today, they bore a very strong resemblance, and the most significant of them was the tramuntana.

There has been much debate as to the origin of the name tramuntana. Its most likely origin was from the Latin "trans montes". Though it is said that it was first documented as an Italian word in the early sixteenth century, it most clearly wasn't. The Cresques used it, and Ramon Llull, the great Mallorcan polymath of the thirteenth century, also used a word that was very similar. Why, you might ask, is this important? Well, it is because the eight winds of the Mediterranean, as they are now known, are also sometimes referred to as the eight Catalan winds of the Mediterranean. In effect, the Cresques invented the "vents", the winds. Or certainly, they invented the tramuntana, no doubt borrowing from what was common usage that had probably been handed down from Llull.
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  #2  
Old 16-07-2014, 11:45
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Really interesting read sparky. We used to stay in an apartment above restaurant Mistral (now a you know what!). It was certainly well named! I was forever asking the children to keep the doors shut because the wind used to suddenly blow up the alley beside the restaurant and all the doors would crash shut
Did they listen
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Old 16-07-2014, 12:56
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Thanks v. much for this, Sparky - fascinating stuff, and doubly so for us because our villa is named Xaloc - and there is indeed usually a breeze blowing
about its vicinity… not sure whether it's from the south-east though!
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Old 16-07-2014, 15:02
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Sparky saw the heading which had me worried for you.
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Old 16-07-2014, 16:28
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The name of my road is Llebeig and the apartments i live in are called Tramuntana so Snowy maybe you are right to worry for .
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Old 16-07-2014, 21:40
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Thanks for posting this, Sparky. It's really fascinating!
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Old 16-07-2014, 22:31
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Doesn't that inlay on the ground in the centre of the town square in PP represent the winds and their direction?
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Old 16-07-2014, 22:44
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Originally Posted by nickpaulanoah View Post
Doesn't that inlay on the ground in the centre of the town square in PP represent the winds and their direction?
Yes it does .
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Old 17-07-2014, 11:37
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I found this very interesting post on Andrew Ede's blog :- alcudiapollensa: A Short History Of Wind, i hope you don't mind me sharing it on the forum Andrew but i thought some of our members would enjoy reading it, i certainly did.

Very interesting article Sparky - being a bit of a weather freak it made excellent reading and a bit of history thrown in too.
Sailed down the Costa Brava some years ago and felt the full force of a Tramuntana (very strong northerly and not very funny!) and was subsequently 'storm-bound' for several days in Port de la Selva - not many miles over the border from France. The winds in the Med' can get quite vicious and anyone setting off out to sea should beware at all times.

Also interesting that so many street names in PP are named after the various winds.
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Last edited by pescador2009; 17-07-2014 at 11:40.
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