Embate
Explains the Madeiran terms embate (the daytime sea breeze) and terral (the night-time land breeze), their timing, causes and directions. It notes their effect on sailing ships entering Funchal harbour and the cleansing effect of the terral on the city's air.
Madeirans call the wind that blows from the sea during the day the embate (daytime sea breeze), and the wind that blows from the land at night the land breeze (terral). The embate usually begins between 8 and 9 in the morning and dies away in the afternoon; the land breeze sets in between 9 and 10 at night and lasts until the early hours of the following day. Between the appearance of these two winds there is always an interval during which the air is calm. In winter the winds we are referring to are highly irregular, but in summer they blow with great regularity. They are caused by the difference in temperature between land and sea, by night and by day. By day, the sun’s rays warm the air over the land, which becomes lighter and rises to the upper regions, so the breeze blows from the sea; at night, since the air over the land is cooler than that over the sea, the reverse occurs.
The embate generally comes from the south-west, owing to the strength of the north-east breeze, and that is why sailing vessels passing between the Ponta de São Lourenço and the Desertas (‘deserted islands’) take that course to enter the harbour of Funchal. The land breeze blows from the north or north-east and is a beneficial wind, for it carries the city’s exhalations out over the ocean and disperses them.
In this article
Place
Places mentioned · 03
- Desertas
Santa Cruz. Islands bounding the channel used by sailing ships approaching Funchal.
An island group near Madeira that was already separated from it at the last eruptions and shares endemic species with it. It was the main orchil-harvesting area, and Wollaston found 89 beetle species there. The islands were investigated by scientific expeditions, including the Endurance scientists in 1914.
- Harbour of Funchal
Funchal. Harbour that sailing ships enter with the aid of the south-westerly embate.
Funchal Bay, the largest harbour of the Madeira archipelago and the leading port of the Adjacent Islands. The islet lies at its western end, and it lies 4 miles from the port of Câmara de Lobos. The Elucidário gives its shipping statistics from 1901 to 1943 and records episodes such as corsair and warship visits.
- Ponta de São Lourenço
Machico. Sailing ships pass between this point and the Desertas, taking a south-westerly course to reach Funchal.
The Ponta de São Lourenço is the long, narrow eastern headland of Madeira in the parish of Caniçal, said to be named after the caravel São Lourenço, with a lighthouse on its islet. The Elucidário describes its geology, seasonal vegetation, islets, fossil calcareous bodies at Piedade, land snails and use as pasture. The steamer Forerunner sank there in 1884, and a submarine bank lies between it and the Desertas.