Algeria is known for its desert and its suffocating heat in summer, up to 50°C. However, part of the country may also be affected by cold: it is not uncommon for it to freeze in Algeria in winter, but extreme cold is rather rare. However, it is not impossible!
On January 4, 1945, the town of Batna was confronted with the arrival of a airair glacial: the mercuremercure fell to -20°C. How could such a low value be reached? The city is located in the northeast of the country, at an altitude of 1,058 meters, in the Aurès region. Its climate is semi-arid and it can be very hot in summer: 40 to 45°C are common: it hardly rains and the sky is clear almost all year round, which allows temperatures to drop in winter. in these valleys which trap the cold air.
Batna is in fact in a “basin” surrounded by mountains, a real “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 those of today and there is little information on the weather situation of the day, but this value was validated at the time by the Institute of Meteorology and physiquephysique of the globe of Algeria, which depends on the University of Algiers.
Icy values that no longer exist today
It would seem that the entire month of January 1945 was very cold, judging by official observations for that year which reported an average temperature of -4.9°C for January mornings, a difference of almost 5 °C compared to the monthly average, which is considerable. By examining the city's weather history, we realize that the sometimes freezing temperatures of the past no longer occur at all in recent years.
To date, this exceptional temperature remains the absolute cold record in Algeria and one of the lowest temperatures ever recorded on the African continent (after the -23.9°C recorded in Morocco).
