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WEATHER

Tornado in Ibiza, flashfloods in Catalonia: One dead and four missing

At least one person has died after storms hit Spain causing flashfloods across Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.

Tornado in Ibiza, flashfloods in Catalonia: One dead and four missing
Photo: AFP

A body washed up on the beach in Caldes d’Estrac, thought to be a 70 year-old man was who swept away in his car by flashfloods in Arenys de Munt.

Meanwhile emergency teams were searching for a mother and son, whose prefab home was swept away by flood waters in Vilaverd, a village some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the port of Tarragona.

Rescuers were also looking for two people whose car was found in a river near the village of l'Espluga de Francoli in the same area.

Authorities said heavy overnight rainfall in the northeastern region of Catalonia caused power cuts that affected nearly 25,000 people and forced the closure of over 40 roads due to flooding and landslides.

At least three people in San Antonio on Ibiza were injured after a hut on a construction site in which they were sheltering from the storms was ripped off the ground by a tornado.

Strong winds brought torrential rainfall discharging some 130 litres of water per square metre during the ‘gota fria’, a weather phenomenon caused by an upper-level isolated depression known as a DANA in Spain.

The storms uprooted trees causing blockages on several roads across Ibiza and the main road to the airport was closed due to a flood.

During the course of the night the storm moved across the Balearics to the mainland, hitting Valencia region and Castellon province before moving north to Catalonia.

Spain’s weather agency AEMET issued red alerts for several provinces in the northeast region on Wednesday morning.

This map reveals the location of lightening strikes during the storms on Tuesday evening and through the night.

Emergency serivices in Catalonia reported that within a period of eight hours, they had received 2,725 calls during the storms 

 

READ MORE:  Gota Fría: Spain on flood alert as temperatures plummet and storms forecast

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WEATHER

Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Summer is finally here! Or least it is if you live in southern Norway, where a warm front coming up from Europe will bring t-shirt temperatures of 20C by Thursday, according to forecasts.

Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Warm air from southern Europe will combine with a high pressure zone which will bring clear skies and sunshine, with summery weather coming towards the end of the week, Norway’s national weather forecaster Yr has reported. 

“Thursday and Friday especially will be nice,” Ingrid Villa, a meteorologist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, told the public broadcaster NRK. “Then we will probably get temperatures of over 20 degrees Celsius in some places.” 

Patches of 20C warmth are expected both in western Norway around Bergen and in Western Norway around Oslo, with the area around Tromsø expected to have slightly cooler weather, although Villa said that “it will absolutely be something like summer there too”. 

The warm sunny weather is, however, expected to pass northern Norway by, with grey overcast skies expected for much of this week. 

But if you think summer has come to Norway to stay, you risk disappointment as much cooler temperatures are expected next week.  

“There’s nothing unusual in getting an early taste of summer in April and the start of May, and then we can quickly go back to cooler more spring-like weather,” Villa said. 

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