Algeria is known for its desert and suffocating summer heat, up to 50°C. However, parts of the country can also be affected by the cold: freezing is not unusual in Algeria in winter, but extreme cold is rare. However, it is not impossible!
On January 4, 1945, Batna town experienced the arrival of one. the windthe wind glacial : the MercureMercure It dropped to -20 degrees Celsius. How can such a low price be reached? The city is located in the northeast of the country at an altitude of 1,058 meters in the Oris region. Its climate is semi-arid and can be very hot in summer: 40 to 45 °C is common: it barely rains and the sky is clear almost all year round, making the temperature in these valleys falls down Cold wind
Batna is actually in a “basin” surrounded by mountains, a veritable “cold hole” in winter. The average temperature in January is 0°C in the morning and 11°C in the afternoon. The freezing value recorded in 1945 therefore represents a deviation from the monthly average of 20°C! Weather observations were not as sophisticated as today and little is known about the weather conditions at that time, but this value was confirmed by the Institute of Meteorology at the time. The bodyThe body of the world of Algeria, which depends on the University of Algeria.
Ice values that don’t exist today.
The entire month of January 1945 appears to have been very cold, with official observations for that year reporting an average January morning temperature of -4.9 °C, a difference of about 5 °C from the monthly average. By examining the weather history of the remarkable city, we understand that the sometimes freezing temperatures of the past have not been at all the case in recent years.
To date, this unusual temperature is the coldest recorded in Algeria and one of the lowest recorded on the African continent (after -23.9 °C in Morocco).
