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WEATHER

IN IMAGES: Storm Ciarán’s 150km/h winds cause havoc across Spain

One person was killed in Madrid on Thursday as Storm Ciarán ripped through Spain with winds of up to 150km/h, causing flight and train cancellations, traffic hold-ups and dozens of trees pulled from the ground.

Published: 2 November 2023 16:49 CET
IN IMAGES: Storm Ciarán's 150km/h winds cause havoc across Spain
Storm Ciaran causes havoc across Spain. Photo: Glyn KIRK / AFP

It’s not just the UK and other parts of Western Europe that have been feeling the wrath of Storm Ciarán this Thursday, Spain has been battered by rains and gale-force winds too, causing chaos across the country.

Forty-eight of Spain’s 50 provinces (with the Canary Islands being the exception) have been placed on alert and the storm has already caused widespread chaos in many regions. 

In Madrid, a tree fell on the A2 motorway causing three kilometres of traffic jams.

Police in the Spanish capital have also confirmed the death of a young woman in the Alonso Martínez neighbourhood after a tree fell on her and injured three others.

Madrid firefighters attended 109 emergency calls on Thursday morning due to problems related to the strong winds and falling tree branches on the streets.

Railway operator Adif has suspended circulation on several railway lines across the country and set speed limits on others due to strong lateral wind gusts higher than 100 kilometres per hour.

Firefighters from Huesca have rescued three people and their pets from two cabins in Pyrenean village of Castiello de Jaca, due to flooding and intense rains.

Storm Ciarán has caused power cuts in the northwestern region of Galicia as well, with some 9,800 customers affected.

The ski resort of La Pinilla, in the province of Segovia, experienced the strongest wind gusts in the country so far this morning at 151 kilometres per hour, the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) reported.

Strong winds also forced the cancellation of 13 flights from Bilbao airport. During the course of the morning, flights to or from Seville, London, Barcelona, Porto, Frankfurt, Madrid, Amsterdam and Munich stopped taking off or landing.

Falling branches and trees, along with the accumulation of water have forced the cancellation of several flights from Santiago de Compostela airport too.

The storm has left a trail of incidents in Galicia including 168 km/h winds in the mountains of Lugo, intense rainfall of more than 70 litres per square meter near Pontevedra and waves of almost seven metres in La Coruña. Train services have been suspended since November 1st between Ourense and Vigo and between La Coruña and Ferrol.

Storm Ciarán has been making its way up through Europe, also affecting much of France, the UK and the Netherlands. 

The storm battered northern France with record winds of nearly 200 km/h, causing a lorry driver to be crushed by a falling tree and some 1.2 million French homes to lose electricity overnight.

In Cornwall in southern England, large waves powered by winds of 135 km/h, crashed along the coastline on Thursday morning, while hundreds of schools across the region were closed.

On the Channel Island of Jersey, residents had to be evacuated to hotels overnight as wind gusts of up to 164 km/hour damaged homes, according to local media. 

And, the Netherlands also warned of powerful gusts of up to 100 km/h, with workers told to avoid commuting and 206 flights marked as ‘cancelled’ at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a major European hub.

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WEATHER

Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

2023 was the world’s hottest summer on record, with many countries including Spain experiencing scorching temperatures. What are meteorologists forecasting for summer 2024?

Published: 16 May 2024 11:05 CEST
Updated: 18 May 2024 07:44 CEST
Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

2023 was in fact the second-hottest summer Spain had ever experienced – the hottest being just one year earlier in 2022.

During that year, 11,300 people died in Spain alone due to the abnormally high temperatures, marine life perished in the warming seas and even train tracks warped and became deformed.

All eyes are looking toward this summer to see what will happen and if it will be as roasting as the previous two. 

READ ALSO:

According to the climate service Copernicus-EU, above-normal temperatures are predicted across southern Europe this summer.

And in Spain, there is a 50-70 percent chance that this summer will be one of the hottest 20 percent on record, and it will properly begin in June.

According to Spain’s State Meteorological Agency AEMET, we have already seen an abnormal rise this May.

Its quarterly prediction, which will take us up to the end of July (typically the hottest part of the summer here in Spain), states that it will almost certainly be warmer than usual on the Mediterranean side of the country, as well as the Balearic and Canary Islands.

Copernicus agrees with these predictions and has indicated that it’s very likely to be hotter than normal in certain areas of the country. It particularly singled out the Valencia region, Murcia (except the south), northern Almería and Granada, Ibiza and Formentera and the western Canary Islands.

It’s getting more and more difficult to know exactly what ‘above normal’ temperatures are, considering what Spain has experienced the last few years, but the reference period that many experts are basing their predictions on is from 1991-2020.

When it comes to rainfall, Copernicus has forecast that the “most likely scenario is a summer with less rain” than usual.

AEMET agreed with the prediction, stating on its X account that “most likely rainfall will be less throughout the country than what is already normally scarce in the summer season”.

This is bad news for many parts of Spain, such as Catalonia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, which have already been experiencing an ongoing drought over the past two years.

Luckily, spring rains have managed to fill reservoirs just enough to see us through the summer at this point, but more rain will definitely be needed come autumn.

READ ALSO: Will drought restrictions affect summer holidays in Spain?

While scientists agree the sizzling temperatures experienced over the past few summers are down to climate change, last year in 2023, the cyclical phenomenon known as El Niño also had a part to play in global weather patterns.

When the seas become cooler on average and it has a cooling effect on the planet, this is partly down to the effect of La Niña.

This year is supposed to be dominated by La Niña and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US, La Niña has a 49 percent chance of developing between June and August and a 69 percent chance between July and September.

But this doesn’t necessarily mean that this summer will be cooler than last year.

As of May 16th 2024, we’re undergoing a neutral period known as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Despite the global cooling effect of La Niña in 2022, it was still the planet’s sixth hottest year and the hottest in Spain ever recorded.

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