Camacha, Madeira: Fifteen Minutes Up, In the Cloud

Q: Is Camacha cloudy?

At 702 m it sits inside the band where Madeira’s trade-wind cloud layer normally forms, between 600–800 m and about about 1,600 m in winter and lower in summer. Low cloud and drizzle here while the coast below is clear is the ordinary case, not the exception. No station measures the village directly, so this is the altitude rule rather than a local reading.

Q: How far is Camacha from Funchal?

A modelled 15 minutes, and 17 minutes to the airport — routing-engine outputs at free-flow speed with no traffic and no weather. The road climbs several hundred metres to get here, so the figure is a floor and a wet winter evening is a different drive from a dry Sunday morning.

Camacha is a village with a real centre, which on the high ground of Madeira is rarer than it sounds: a square, shops, a school and a supermarket, a quarter of an hour above the capital on the model.

It is also seven hundred metres up, and that single fact governs the weather more than anything else on this page.

The altitude is the weather

The elevation model puts the village centre at 702 m, source: Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API, read August 26, 2026, with ground within a few hundred metres running down to 432 m, source: Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API, read August 26, 2026. That range describes terrain near the centre point, not the parish, which continues a long way down towards the coast.

Madeira’s trade-wind cloud layer normally forms between 600–800 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 and about about 1,600 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 in winter, and lower in summer. Camacha sits inside that band rather than below it, so low cloud and drizzle are routine here on days when the coast a few kilometres away is clear. This is the southern slope of the island, but height matters as much as aspect — the measured version of that trade-off covers both.

What is actually in the village

Centro de Saúde da Camacha, on Largo Conselheiro Aires de Ornelas, opens on weekdays with a Saturday morning nursing service. It has no urgência, and the region’s only twenty-four-hour hospital emergency department is in Funchal.

There is a Continente Modelo at Camacha Shopping. Lidl has no store anywhere in the archipelago. Schooling is an Escola Básica com Pré-escolar e Creche, so primary and below in the village and secondary elsewhere. The Funchal–Camacha bus is the trunk route, with several others serving the parish. Every Madeiran route number changed to three digits on 9 March 2026.

The measurements, and where they come from

There is no published weather station in Camacha. The nearest is Cancela/SRPC, down at Caniço, which recorded a mean annual air temperature of 18.7 °C, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026 in 2025 and mean wind of 5.9 km/h, source: DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira, read August 26, 2026.

That station is several hundred metres lower, so its temperature reading is not Camacha’s. The honest position is that no station measures this village, and the altitude rule — cooler and cloudier with height — is the best available guide. Where a page on this site has no measurement, it says so rather than borrowing one and calling it local.

Who lives here, and the drive

Camacha counted 6,239, source: DREM / INE, 2021, read August 26, 2026 residents at the 2021 census, which makes it a substantial parish rather than a hamlet. DREM publishes no parish-level estimates after the census, so that figure is four years old.

Modelled at free-flow speed over OpenStreetMap data, Funchal is 15 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 26, 2026 and the airport 17 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 28, 2026. Both are short by Madeiran standards, and both are routing-engine outputs with no traffic and no weather in them — which on a road that climbs into the cloud band is a real omission.

Who it does not suit

Sun-seekers — at this altitude it sits in or just under the island’s cloud band for much of the year, and low cloud and drizzle are routine when the coast below is clear.

Questions people actually ask

Is Camacha cloudy?

At 702 m, source: Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API, read August 26, 2026 it sits inside the band where Madeira’s trade-wind cloud layer normally forms, between 600–800 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 and about about 1,600 m, source: Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade), read August 26, 2026 in winter and lower in summer. Low cloud and drizzle here while the coast below is clear is the ordinary case, not the exception. No station measures the village directly, so this is the altitude rule rather than a local reading.

Does Camacha have a supermarket and a school?

Both. There is a Continente Modelo at Camacha Shopping, and an Escola Básica com Pré-escolar e Creche in the village, which covers pre-school and primary years. Secondary schooling is elsewhere in the municipality. Lidl has no store anywhere in the archipelago.

How far is Camacha from Funchal?

A modelled 15 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 26, 2026, and 17 minutes, source: OSRM over OpenStreetMap data, read August 28, 2026 to the airport — routing-engine outputs at free-flow speed with no traffic and no weather. The road climbs several hundred metres to get here, so the figure is a floor and a wet winter evening is a different drive from a dry Sunday morning.

Does Camacha have emergency cover?

No. The centro de saúde opens on weekdays with a Saturday morning nursing service and has no urgência. The nearest round-the-clock urgent care is outside the parish, and the region’s only twenty-four-hour hospital emergency department is at Hospital Dr. Nélio Mendonça in Funchal.

Where this came from

SESARAM: Diretório de serviços — centros de saúde. sesaram.pt/portal/utente/diretorio-de-servicos/centr Read August 26, 2026.
SESARAM: Urgência — horário dos serviços. sesaram.pt/portal/utente/urgencia/horario-dos-servic Read August 26, 2026.
Governo Regional da Madeira: Dados dos estabelecimentos de ensino, 2024/2025. place.madeira.gov.pt/place21/nStyles/Bootstrap/img/assets/Dado Read August 26, 2026.
SIGA, Governo Regional da Madeira: Renumeração das carreiras para três dígitos, em vigor desde 09/03/2026. siga.madeira.gov.pt/noticias/show/2069 Read August 26, 2026.
Continente: Lojas — Madeira. feed.continente.pt/lojas/madeira Read August 26, 2026.
Governo Regional da Madeira (portal da geodiversidade): Prada et al., Disponibilidades Hídricas da Ilha da Madeira. geodiversidade.madeira.gov.pt/images/documentos/Publicacoes/Madeira/Dis Read August 26, 2026.
Copernicus DEM GLO-90 via the Open-Meteo elevation API: Ground elevation at the centre point and four points about 700 m away. api.open-meteo.com/v1/elevation Read August 26, 2026.
DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira: Temperatura do ar anual, 2000–2025 (série retrospetiva, dados meteorológicos). estatistica.madeira.gov.pt/download-now/ambiente-territorio/dados-me Read August 26, 2026.
DREM — Direção Regional de Estatística da Madeira: Velocidade e rumo do vento, 2012–2025 (série retrospetiva, dados meteorológicos). estatistica.madeira.gov.pt/download-now/ambiente-territorio/dados-me Read August 26, 2026.
DREM / INE: Censos 2021, resultados definitivos — Quadro 10, resident population by geographic location. estatistica.madeira.gov.pt/en/download-now-3/social-gb/popcondsoc-gb Read August 26, 2026.
OSRM over OpenStreetMap data: Free-flow driving route — modelled output, not a measured journey. router.project-osrm.org/route/v1/driving/-16.8448679,32.679439;-1 Read August 26, 2026.
OSRM over OpenStreetMap data: Free-flow driving route — modelled output, not a measured journey. router.project-osrm.org/route/v1/driving/-16.8448679,32.679439;-1 Read August 28, 2026.

Camacha: fifteen minutes above Funchal, and inside the cloud band