Calima
What is calima?
Have you ever heard about calima? It is a not-so-talked-about weather phenomenon that is almost unique to Spain in its strength. And it is weird! It is basically caused by strong winds that blow from the north of Africa and bring Sahara’s sand to the south of Spain. And boy, it makes a difference!! In a strong calima, the sky gets orange, the cars and pavement get covered in sand, and the white houses become yellow.
It is best to see pictures for you to get the idea; check google for ‘calima Spain’ and I’m sure you’ll find a lot. I add here a link from the Spanish newspaper Sur talking about the extraordinary Calima that happened in March 2022. Luckily, they say it is unlikely that such a strong calima should happen again in the near future.
Calima is translated as haze, but I don’t think it is quite the same; Spanish calima is practically pure sand, not so much dust or pollutants. It doesn’t happen every year, and it is usually light, not so visible as the one of March 2022 that is pictured here. When calima starts, it can last for about a week, as the sand remains in suspension for days after the wind itself stops blowing from the Sahara. People generally wait until it is gone and then start washing the city floors, the terraces and the white walls (imagine the work in the whitewashed pueblos!)
My first calima
When I got to Spain, I didn’t know about calima; when it happened, I noticed first that the pavement was covered in sand, so I thought that the administration of Torremolinos was doing a bad job at cleaning the city. I was ‘living’ in a vacation rental apartment back then and had just arrived in Spain two months before.
That was the day I took the picture that is on the top of this post, and also the day I had to go enroll Kiddo in the public school (in March, you know). I went from Torremolinos to Benalmadena, by train and then walking. I noticed the sky was kinda orange, and that in Benalmadena as well there was sand everywhere on the floor, on the cars… and then it started to rain a little – which I thought was a good thing, as it would help clean the floors and the sky.
Too bad I was outside and without an umbrella, but it wasn’t that much water anyway and it looked just like normal rain. I didn’t really mind, as I was happy I had finished the procedures with the school. Arriving back home, though, I realized that the coat I had been wearing was practically dry but covered in drops of sand!
It felt so weird! It was a super strange start of my journey living in Spain, that’s for sure. Good thing the locals knew what was going on, and nobody seemed terrorized by the fact that, on that day, it rained sand.
For the next few days, it was all I could talk about, though. I didn’t know too many people, but I asked everybody I knew about the ‘sand rain’ and was soon informed of the name ‘calima’. I googled the heck out of it. Curiosity satisfied, I was glad I didn’t own a house yet, so I wouldn’t have to clean walls…
Calima and respiratory problems
Calima happens mostly during winter months and can cause respiratory problems to people that are already prone to have them. The best to do during a calima period is to stay home, with windows closed. Unless you want to take unique pictures or need to enroll your kid in the public school, of course.
Conclusion
Calima is quite unique, and it is something to keep in mind when considering a move to Spain or a trip during the winter. People that suffer from asthma or other respiratory problems should perhaps check with their doctor to see if their symptoms could be made worse by calima. This phenomenon is not unique to the Costa del Sol; the closer to the Sahara, the more sand a region gets, which makes the Canary Islands the area of Spain that receives the most calima. The north of Spain and even the south of France get some sand too, tough much less than the south of Spain.
Calima is not always so visible as in the pictures, or even visible at all. It has to accumulate a lot of sand before the sky becomes orange. Though this calima of 2022 was extreme, the phenomenon itself is not so rare in the south of Spain. A much lighter and not visible form of calima happens a few days per year, particularly during the winter, when there can be some calima alert days on weather apps; despite of that, 2022 was the only year in which I actually saw the sky orange.
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