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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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CLIMATE CRISIS

‘Far hotter than normal’: Spain set for scorching summer after rainy June

Rainy periods have marked June so far in parts of the country, but Spain’s meteorological agency has warned that it could still have one the hottest summers on record.

Published: 20 June 2024 09:43 CEST
'Far hotter than normal': Spain set for scorching summer after rainy June

Spain could be set for a “far hotter than normal” summer this year, with experts predicting that it could be one of the hottest on record. This is according to forecasts by Spain’s state meteorological agency (Aemet).

Aemet spokesman Rubén del Campo stated that “there’s a high probability that temperatures will be much higher than normal and that this summer will be among the hottest 20 percent on historical record.”

READ ALSO: 2023 was second-hottest year on record in Spain

He added that the probability of a scorching summer is between 70-100 percent in most of Spain, and that the unusually warm weather could be felt most in the northern half of the peninsula, as well as the eastern Canary Islands.

Aemet posted some weather forecast maps to its X/Twitter account in recent days, with the entirety of the Spanish mainland and islands covered in dark red, meaning a high probability of abnormally high temperatures. “The high probability” of a heatwave, it said, “extends to the rest of southern Europe and northern Africa.”

This follows something of a stop-start June with rainy periods in many parts of the country. Del Campo admitted that so far “it seems that the summer hasn’t started” because temperatures are “slightly” lower than normal for the time of year, but stressed that Aemet forecast models predict that the intense heat will not take long to arrive. 

A marked rise in temperatures is expected for this weekend, although they could drop again next week before going up again as high summer approaches, according to forecasts.

With regards to rainfall, it seems it will likely also be a dry summer with little rain. Del Campo predicted “a summer with less rain than usual, especially in the north and inland peninsula”, where there is a 50-60 percent probability of rainfall below historical averages for the time of year:  “The most likely scenario is that of a quarter with less rainfall than usual,” he added.

Though an unusually wet Easter period helped to refill some of Spain’s dwindling reservoir reserves, a long period of dry weather will likely worsen Spain’s ongoing drought conditions. The problem is particularly bad in Catalonia and Andalusia.

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

Looking back on spring temperatures, Aemet data shows that it was also one of the warmest on record. Del Campo stressed that it was “the eighth warmest spring of the 21st century and the tenth since the start of the historical series in 1961.”

The average temperature during spring was 13.1C, which is 0.7C above average values for the 1991-2020 period. “Eight of the ten warmest springs on record have been recorded since 2006, further evidence of climate change,” Del Campo said.

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