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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

In the mountains, at about 3k feet or 1k meters elevation. Yes, the headline is quite misleading. I expect more from the BBC.

From the article:

> The temperature plunged to -25C (-13F) in Molina de Aragón and Teruel, in mountains east of Madrid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molina_de_Arag%C3%B3n

> Elevation 1,065 m (3,494 ft)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teruel

> Elevation 915 m (3,002 ft)

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The headline doesn’t come across as misleading to me. I interpreted it as the temperature having been recorded somewhere in central Spain which appears to be accurate (granted my Spanish geography isn’t great). The tone also appears to be consistent with what else is being reported - that this is unusual or possibly even extreme weather.

I’m assuming your expectation was different. If so I’d be be curious as to how you did interpret it?

Knowing the topography of Spain helps.

My interpretation is that the very, very woke BBC staff picked what seems like extreme temps from a mountain region and then technically correctly wrote that "Central Spain" "records temperatures of -25C". That is all.

Do note: I'm not a climate change denier. I just hate crap like this, with a passion. I don't think we should have to abandon facts in this particular fight.

It seems like a bunch of people here think we should. That's very scary and destructive, IMO.

It’s the first time in 20 years those elevated areas have reached these temps.

The average low is around -3.5c for January.

You might be giving the BBC an overly hard time here. This does appear to be a significant (1 in 20 year) deviation.

This takes seems really off to me somehow.

They reported a min temperature of -25C, noted it is in an area known as "spanish siberia" (e.g. somewhere that expects cold weather) then note that it was unusually cold even for there, the coldest in 'at least 20 years'.

They also reported -16C in Madrid itself, and the struggles that hospitals were having with a combination of COVID impact and a large number of additional fracture cases from falling on ice.

None of this seem particularly sensationalized, misleading (intentionally or otherwise), or whatever you mean by "woke".

Well, it's the headline we're talking about. As I wrote, "Yes, the headline is quite misleading."

Without that headline, this post wouldn't have been made it here.

So you're objecting to the general nature of headlines for the last 50+ years at least? I don't see what you thought was worth calling out, really.

That’s really interesting - thank you for replying.

Hey, I now see that my reply was kinda "bossy". Sorry; I was just a bit upset.

No offence taken. I happen to disagree with you about the headline interpretation and the BBC wokeness bit but that’s what a good debating environment is for. (Without arguing the merits either way on the wider issue, I think this isn’t a good article to demonstrate over-wokeness at the BBC for example).

All that said though, it’s interesting to hear others’ points of view and the thanks for replying was genuinely meant.

> technically correctly wrote that "Central Spain" "records temperatures of -25C". That is all.

They are technically correct, which is the best kind of correct. You're mad that their reporting is factually correct?

You should go to reddit or something.

Even in Madrid it got down to -16C (average low for January is 2.7C).

Central Spain contains a large plateau at an elevation of ~500-1000m above sea level.

Checking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meseta_Central , I was almost correct. With an area of 200000 km^2 (from german Wikipedia) it is even larger than I expected.

That doesn't seem very misleading. The estimated temperature difference for every 1000 meters in additional elevation is only 5-6C.

The Wikipedia page for Molina de Aragón, which you linked to, says that the average low in January for that locality is -3.5C, and that the record low is -28C, which happens to also be the record low ever recorded in the whole of Spain (still according to the Wikipedia page).

-25C is thus certainly newsworthy and, well, that's in central Spain, which is elevated, but "central Spain" does not imply that it isn't and Spanish geography is what it is. This is not misleading.

Mentioning elevation without any context or reference to historical temperatures is not very helpful. Consider updating your comment.

Yeah, how its written is like it's -25 at massive population centers. Intentional vague.

The elevation of Madrid is 667 meters according to Wikipedia. So we are not talking about the temperature of an isolated mountain top, even if they report the most extreme temperature.

THIS.

Plus, it is not that unusual. It happened 18 years ago already.

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