Spain is facing the second day of the severe episode of torrential rains, intense showers and storms that will continue until Wednesday, but the most adverse phase has already passed. At noon, as planned, the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) lifted the last red warnings that affected the south of Tarragona and the coast of Castellón. In points of the first province, 250 liters of water per square meter accumulated until this morning since Thursday have been exceeded and, in the second, 170. According to Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), the forecast is that in the afternoon the probability of very strong storms and showers will continue on the coasts of southern Catalonia, the Valencian Community, throughout Murcia, Almería, Ibiza and Formentera, all of them under orange notice.
“These intense showers can lead to local flooding and sudden flooding of riverbeds, in addition to hail and very strong gusts of wind,” says Del Campo. Furthermore, this Friday "instability extends to a good part of the Peninsula and, also starting at noon, there will be locally strong storms in large areas of the center and east of the territory, which will worsen during the afternoon and evening and may be accompanied by hail."
At this time, there are warnings in 10 communities: the level is orange (significant risk, the second level of the three existing ones) due to rain and storms in Andalusia, the Balearic Islands and Murcia; orange for rain and yellow (the minimum) for storms in Catalonia and the Valencian Community; and yellow for both phenomena in Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, Community of Madrid and Extremadura.
The red ones have affected the southern coast of Tarragona and the entire coast of Castellón until midday, to which the southern pre-coast of Tarragona had been added early in the morning due to phenomena already observed (as more water fell than expected). At two in the morning, two red lights were deactivated in the interior of Castellón and on the coast of Valencia. Furthermore, in the Canary Islands, the yellow notice has also been lifted in La Palma.
At the moment it is very difficult to take stock, since the most adverse part of the episode still has many hours left. At 6:30, the Valencian delegation of the Aemet has reported that in the last 12 hours there have been strong or torrential storm showers, generally in areas close to the coast and without much penetration into the interior, which have left flooding in towns on the northern coast of Castellón and areas of the Ribera. It has also disseminated accumulated amounts from the agency's network and the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation: Alcalà de Xivert (Castellón) 145.8 liters, Polinyà de Xúquer (Valencia) 127.8 and Torreblanca (Castellón) 121.
In the network of the Valencian association Avamet, until 11:00 the 140 from Peníscola or the more than 100 from Cervera and Ribera de Cabanes stand out. "Between yesterday and today some towns in Castellón already exceed 170," he points out. For its part, in Catalonia the Meteocat has indicated at 10:45 that the rains of the last few hours in Tarragona "have left more than 200 liters of rain in sectors of Montsià and Baix Ebre and more than 100 in the south of Baix Camp and Ribera d'Ebre." L'Ametlla de Mar accumulates 246.9 between Thursday and Friday and it continues to rain heavily.” Del Campo highlights that at the Tortosa observatory (Tarragona) 162 liters per square meter accumulated in just six hours between Thursday night and early Friday morning.
In the coming days "unstable weather will continue with the possibility of showers accompanied by storms on the Peninsula and in the Balearic Islands," Del Campo predicts. Over the weekend, these precipitations "may still be very intense in areas of the Mediterranean area and, starting Monday, they will affect the west of the peninsula more" and all this with temperatures that will be "generally mild, somewhat above normal for the time of year."
Day by day, on Saturday the “unstable weather will continue with showers and intense storms, although not as much as in previous days,” the agency spokesperson reassures. At dawn, "strong showers are expected in areas of the Mediterranean area, in the south of Aragon and in inland areas of the southern half." In the afternoon, storms will grow again "in the east of the Peninsula and in the Balearic Islands." Precipitation may be very heavy in all these areas.
In the rest of the territory, storms will also form, which will grow dispersed in many parts of the territory and which, locally, may be strong. “We can be surprised by an intense shower almost anywhere on the Peninsula, but the strongest ones will occur in the Mediterranean area, especially in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands,” summarizes the Aemet spokesperson.
The generalization of showers is palpable, with 15 communities under warning: it will be orange for rain and storms only in the Balearic Islands and orange for rain and yellow for storms in the Valencian Community and Catalonia. They will have yellow for both phenomena in Andalusia, Aragon, Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Community of Madrid, Extremadura, Murcia, the Basque Country and La Rioja. In Galicia, yellow due to storms. The temperatures this day "will be lower in the west of the peninsula and higher in the east with a mild environment." In the lower Guadalquivir it will exceed 32°.
On Sunday “the rough weather will continue,” although its cause will be different. As has been announced since Wednesday, a dana will form in the Atlantic, west of the Peninsula, although its effects will not be severe and "the areas with the probability of showers will be less extensive than in previous days."
“The presence of a dana in the area of Spain does not always mean that torrential rains will occur with very serious impacts, since all this depends not only on the dana, but also on other meteorological and non-meteorological factors, such as the exposure and vulnerability of the population,” says Del Campo, aware that the majority of the population mistakenly considers that a dana implies torrential rains per se.
The dana will leave “showers with storms, especially in the north, in the center, in the Mediterranean area and in the Balearic Islands.” They will be locally strong and may even still be very strong locally again in parts of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands from early morning, with slightly lower temperatures. In principle, there are no warnings.
On Monday the unstable weather will continue, "but with a change in the areas where rainfall will be more abundant." At dawn, it will continue to rain in the Mediterranean, where the storms that formed the day before will continue, but they will diminish. And in the afternoon, the most intense showers and storms will occur in Galicia, the Cantabrian Sea, Castilla y León, Extremadura and the surroundings of the southern Iberian System - south of Aragon, northeast of Castilla-La Mancha and north of the Valencian Community. In the interior of Castellón there will be locally strong showers.
On Tuesday, uncertainty increases, but today it seems that "instability could get worse in the north and west of the peninsula", with locally strong showers in these areas that will no longer affect the Mediterranean area. On Wednesday, the rains "could extend to large areas. Temperatures will be "lower starting Tuesday, with values close to normal averages for the time of year already on that day."
Why is it raining so much if there is no dana behind it?
What is most surprising to experts in the most adverse phase of this storm is the absence of a large structure as the culprit of such virulence in the rains, which are being torrential and persistent without the need for there to be a dana or a storm or a trough to cause them... First, the source of instability was a front of an Atlantic storm, then, there was a weak trough crossing the Peninsula, elements that, "by themselves, cannot would justify such extraordinary amounts of precipitation," explains veteran meteorologist Ángel Rivera, who blames "the great humidity available in lower layers over the Mediterranean as a result of the high summer temperatures." The Aemet also considers that one of the keys is the "sea water temperature." Many areas of the western Mediterranean exceed 26°, something more typical of August. These are values up to 4° higher than normal for these dates. "A warm sea causes greater instability due to the temperature contrast between the cold air in the upper layers of the atmosphere and the warm and humid air located on the surface of the sea. In addition, it provides greater humidity to the atmosphere, as there is more evaporation in warm waters," explains Aemet. The agency's meteorologist Benito Fuentes notes that this "warm anomaly in the Mediterranean is 100 times more likely in a world with climate change," so the ultimate cause of what happened is global warming. Fuentes also emphasizes the absence of a dana, which in the collective imagination has become the sole cause and synonym of torrential rains. "Episodes of extreme precipitation are not always associated with a dana. On this occasion, it is due to the anticyclone, which forms a maritime flow in low layers, helped by low pressure in North Africa, along with other factors," he explains in X.
