Spain: farewell to fleeting spring, hello to wintry spell
Entire country on alert for driving rain, gusting winds and significant snowfall after a balmy few days
The spring-like weather that brought unseasonably warm days to Spain for most of last week is over. A storm started moving over the peninsula on Sunday, delivering rain, winds and snow across much of the territory and pushing temperatures down with a vengeance.
On Monday, all of Spain save for the exclave of Ceuta, on the northern coast of Africa, was on a weather advisory for adverse weather conditions. The Spanish meteorology agency Aemet said that the wintry spell will last several days.
Aemet is forecasting that the unstable weather will extend from the northwest to the northeast and down the eastern part of the country in the direction of the gulf of Cadiz. Spain’s western regions have a lower chance of rain.
Even the Canary Islands, which enjoy mild weather year-round, are on orange alert
Every region, as well as the exclave city of Melilla, is either on yellow (risk) or orange (important risk) alert for hazardous weather conditions. The Valencia region is expecting rainfall of 100 liters per square meter within 12 hours, snowfall of two to five centimeters at elevations of 1,000 meters, and winds that will gust up to 90 km/h, creating five-meter swells at sea.
The normally dry Murcia region could see between 18 and 30cm of snow at elevations of 800m. And further south, in Andalusia, the provinces of Almería, Granada and Jaén are on orange alert for snow. Near white-out conditions are also expected in parts of Teruel province, in the Aragon region. A similar situation is forecast for the mountainous northern regions of Asturias and Cantabria.
In Catalonia, the provinces of Barcelona and Girona are on yellow alert, the lowest on the scale, for wind, rain and snow. So are Madrid, Navarre, Extremadura, the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country and La Rioja.
Even the Canary Islands, which enjoy mild weather year-round, are on orange alert for wind speeds of up to 90 km/h that will create hazardous conditions along the coastlines.
The wintry weather will be most noticeable through the plunging temperatures. In Madrid, thermometers dropped from 24ºC on Saturday to 13ºC on Monday, whereas in Valencia, residents transitioned from 20ºC on Sunday to 14ºC on Monday. In Málaga, the drop was from 28ºC on Sunday to 19ºC on Monday.
English version by Susana Urra.
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