The Easter weather forecast was one of showers for most of Spain but no one expected the rain to come down quite as heavily as it has done for the past three days in and around the city of Alicante. 

In the nearby town of Jávea (Xabia) Sunday’s downpour saw 250 litres of rainfall for every square metre, flooding hundreds of homes and leaving cars floating in the streets like corn flakes in a cereal bowl.

Fortunately no casualties have been reported but rescue teams did have to evacuate over 100 people from the town.

A further 70 were evacuated in nearby Denia and taken to safety in the car park of the town’s local hospital.

Heavy rainfall and storms have been ravaging the Alicante area since Thursday.

As well as the flash floods, wind speeds have reached 100km/h along Spain’s central eastern coastline.

The neighbouring regions of Safor, Ribera Alta and Ribera Baja were also given the red alert for extreme weather conditions by Spain’s meteorology agency AEMET.

In fact, most of the whole autonomous community of Comunidad Valenciana, including its capital Valencia and regions in the interior have experienced at least 100 litres/sqm during the prolonged storm period.

Numerous ports in the region have had to stop operations due to waves of up to three metres in height.

The bad weather has spoiled travel plans for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Spain's Costa Blanca during the Easter period. Around 2.2 million people visited Alicante alone in 2017.

According to local government figures from 2018, the province of Alicante is home to more than 67,000 Brits, as well as more than 15,000 Dutch and German residents respectively as well as large numbers of Norwegians and Swedes.