Return to main page
This printed information is © www.west-crete.com 1999 - 2007 - The West Crete information site -

Rainfall in the White Mountains

The White Mountains: one of the rainiest places in Europe?

 

Well, this is certainly not the impression that a visitor gets when wandering around the beautiful mountain range of the west side of Crete in the summer. Imposing, dry rocks of limestone are overlooking the more lush hills and valleys of the northern side of the prefecture of Chania and the deep blue of the Libyan see to the south. In fact, someone may even guess that precipitation is much higher at the low-lying areas than at the White Mountains, judging by the greenness of the landscape.

It is true that the hilly areas and the valleys of Kydonia and Apokoronas are among the rainiest low-lying regions in Crete, and that is why they have been preferred for agricultural activities for centuries. But the reason why villages and agriculture do not exist at higher altitudes - something which is unlike many other colder areas of Greece – more likely has to do with the “difficult” terrain of the White Mountains and with the fact that limestone is not able to sustain the water that falls onto it. Rather, it tends to “absorb” it and lead it to lower altitudes, where it could resurface in springs and be used by the local population.

But how large are these amounts of water that fall on the White Mountains? Well, this topic remains largely unexplored, due to the fact there were no long-running meteorological stations on these mountains until recently. Luckily, a station at 1250m near Omalos, right above the Samaria Gorge, came to shed some light on this following the efforts of local weather enthusiasts and the support of the National Observatory of Athens. And, not to the surprise of experienced locals, this station proved to be one of the most interesting meteorological stations in Greece during the winter. For example, at this time, the Samaria station leads the table with the highest precipitation amounts in Greece for 2011 so far (5th February). It has received 760mm since the 1st of January (see http://penteli.meteo.gr/stations/samaria/) while the second of the more than 100 other stations currently running in Greece has received 502mm. This observation (Samaria being the wettest station in Greece during winter months) has also been true for the other (few) years that this station has been operating.  And these are winters that have arguably not been very rainy for Crete as a whole. Note that, of course, the above observation is not true from April to October, when northern Greek stations tend to get occasional thunderstorms, while mountainous Crete, blessed by an eternal sunshine, receives almost no precipitation.

A car buried in snow near Kallergi

To add to this impressive weather station profile, we note that the Samaria station received 264mm of rain in a single day a couple of days ago (3rd of February). On the same day, Chania (less than 1-hour drive away) received only 17mm! Apart from everything else, this proves how interesting the variations of weather phenomena and climate are within the island of Crete.

And what is it that makes the Samaria station (and probably the White mountains as a whole) such a rainy place in the winter. First of all, Crete is an island which lies in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, in an area where many low-pressure systems pass by during this season. Usually, these systems come from the west and the region of Chania is the first part of Crete that these storms will “hit”. The high mountains that exist not far from the coastal areas, push the wet air masses to rise and produce even higher amounts of rainfall (something called “the orographic effect”). When the air is cold enough, this precipitation falls in the form of snow, and this is what causes tremendous amounts of snow on the White Mountains during some winters. This combination of high mountains right next to the sea can only be found in certain areas of Europe, like the northwestern coast of Greece, Albania, Croatia, islands like Corsica and perhaps in the western part of the Pyrenees. Western UK is also notorious for being very rainy throughout the year, but the contrast between the coast and the mountainous areas is not very pronounced, due to the fact that the mountains are not very high in that region.

In general, it is expected that a long time-series from this weather station (Samaria) in Crete will establish mountainous western Crete as one of the wettest areas of Europe in the winter. Note that the winters in Crete show a fairly large year-to-year variability in terms of how rainy they are, and that a repetition of a winter like 2001-02 or 2002-03, when more than 3000 mm of precipitation were measured from local authorities at the lower-lying region of Askyfou (750m altitude) in Sfakia, could lead to even bigger surprises higher up (e.g. in Samaria and, why not, in a more mountainous station above 1800m that could be established in the future).

It is a bit unorthodox, I guess, talking to people about rain and snow when everyone is tired of the winter. But rest assured that all the above will be history by the onset of the Cretan spring. The only thing to remind us of the heavy and rainy winter in the White Mountains will be the abundant nice water coming from the local springs that the Cretans and the visitors enjoy in the summer, which would have not been there without the winter’s blessings!

5th February 2011