-34.1ºC: Catalan Pyrenees hit lowest temperature ever registered in Iberian Peninsula

It is not in Siberia, the Mount Everest or the Arctic Circle. El Clot del Tuc de la Llança is a mountain hollow in the Catalan Pyrenees, and on Wednesday it registered a surreal temperature: -34.1ºC. Beyond cold, beyond freezing.

An unofficial weather station owned by Baqueira Beret ski resort in the site hit the lowest value ever recorded in the Iberian Peninsula at 5.19 am local time – lower than the previous all-time low, of -32ºC in 1956 in Estany Gento, not very far in the same mountain range.

The record, pending official evaluation, was registered in a station managed by Meteo Pirineu organization at 2,300 meters above sea level.

Despite being unofficial, the Alt Pirineu natural park has shared the details of the record, saying that the station is "very reliable."

It is an uninhabited area, so nobody had to bear this insanely freezing temperature.  

Why it happened

The temperature dropped by around 20 degrees in around four hours, a phenomenon which is called cold air pool.

Sergi González, a researcher at Aemet, Spain's meteo agency, said on Twitter that "this phenomenon happened with clear sky and calm winds, which favored the cooling of the nearby air in the surface of mountain slopes."

"Cold air weighs more and due to gravity it has gone down to the deepest areas. In Clot this cold air has piled up," he added.

Storm Filomena

The figure came amid especially cold days across the country – this usual weather is due to a storm called Filomena, which might carry a heavy snowfall between Thursday and Saturday in large parts of Catalonia. Some snowflakes have already been noticed at sea level, and more snow near the coast might follow.

The Catalan meteo service has issued an alert for snow for Thursday affecting a dozen counties in the southwest, in the Ebre, Tarragona and Lleida areas – for Friday, some more unusual snow might fall in the river Ebre area.