The 37.6 degrees reached on Sunday is the record temperature in the municipality of Ibiza since records have been kept. This sweltering heat has caused an increase in sales of cooling appliances in appliance stores on the island, despite the high price of electricity. Users are opting more for standing fans, fans that vaporize water and portable air conditioners.
Vila recorded on Sunday the highest temperature in its history with 37.6 degrees. Yesterday, on some parts of the island, it exceeded 36 degrees, so the yellow alert was announced. “They are abnormally high temperatures, with five or six degrees more than what would be usual for these dates,” said the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) in the Balearic Islands. The heat wave has already been noticed in appliance stores, where customers have cleared out the fans, air conditioners and refrigeration devices to alleviate the high temperatures of this July, despite the increase in the price of electricity, which slows some purchases.
“We have run out of fans”, said a sales clerk at Fita, Raquel Puentedura, who explained that the consequences of the economic crisis and the price of electricity are also evident because “people always take what is on offer and the cheapest”.
The fans that most users claim are those that vaporize water and the least output are the tower variety, because “they are the ones that release a little less air,” said Puentedura, although the sales clerk added with laughter that customers “have cleared everything. They have already taken what was there”.
In this line, Vicente Arabi, a Fita worker who is responsible for the sale of household appliances, confessed that “I did not think we would sell so many” portable air conditioner units because these devices “have to run a tube to the outside to be removed through a window.
“I need it now”
“When it’s hot people go out more and say ‘hey, I need it now’,” jokes Arabi, referring to the fact that there are weeks in which some products sell more than others.
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