Wind path off southern Crete
Southern Crete | Mediterranean Sea
Dates of acquisition:
• March 07th, 2025 | 08:41:18 UTC
• March 07th, 2025 | 08:57:29 UTC
Sensors: Sentinel-2B L2A, Sentinel-3B OLCI
Coordinates: ca. 34.9°N, 25.3°E
An interesting phenomenon can sometimes be seen off the south coast of Crete in the area of Tsoutsouras Beach.
The curved beach is bordered from the west by a mountain range up to 900 m high, with a cape extending into the sea. To the east, the mountains rise up to 600 metres. in between them is a 200-300 metres high gorge that runs north-west from Tsoutsouras and leads to a 400 metre high plateau in the north.
The beach of Tsoutsouras is bordered to the south by a bay whose waters have been considered therapeutic since ancient times.
On the 7th of March, a warm current of air descended along the gorge to the sea. At that time, the sea was relatively calm (2 km/h). A narrow wind current (approximately 4 km wide) began to spread at a speed of about 10 km/h , first in a south-easterly direction and then in a southerly direction up to 110 km, raising the sea surface temperature by one degree.
As long as the wind was strong enough,, it caused movement on the sea surface along the entire tongue-shaped path of the current in the form of a swell. This swell, which reflects the sun’s rays in the visible range of the waves differently to a calm water surface, was registered by the Sentinel-2 and -3 satellites.
A similar situation was repeated, for example, on 18 March.
