Cristina Hodgson
FLIGHTS at Malaga – Costa del Sol airport suffered extreme delays yesterday morning due to thick sea mist which surrounded the airport causing chaos and two-hour delays.
Known as taro, the weather phenomenon caused the Airport operations company, Aena, to place the airport on a level red alert.
Planes were unable to leave or arrive before six in the morning due to the fog which created a backlog of flights as the fog only began to dissipate around 10am in the morning.
The dense fog in the Costa del Sol is a weather phenomenon known as the taró, a word of Phoenician origin which refers to the sea fog.
It is triggered by a warm south-southeast wind which sweeps the surface of the sea, which is cold.
The fog also causes humidity to increase, in some parts to as high as 95%, and because the wind is weak, the mass of fog tends to move slowly and therefore hangs around longer.
Yesterday was the sixth consecutive day of fog in the province, something that is without precedent since records began in 1942.
And though Aena has said that the flight schedule has now returned to normal, the forecast is that the phenomenon will continue for a few more days.
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