as pauljenny’s said there is a lot of media frenzy about many of the stories there are a lot of extreme weather events going on but the way the media reports it the whole peninsula is under assault, as the weather front rolls along affecting a new area the ones left behind come back to normal, until saturday in the pomarão area was experiencing 45mph winds yesterday 25mph today 10mph 10 days ago i came through the areas where steve and several others are and it was no more than breezy our weather so far this trip has been worse than usual but on the way down we hadn’t seen rain coming round the med coast for ten days the others coming through spain in the north west had rain almost every day, the five storms have focused in different places the first couple hit the cadiz gibraltar hardest the second rolled around to malaga and andulucia almost 300 mls of coastline the last couple of storms have hit the lisbon coimbra area of portugal and the alicante valencia area of spain,
when we speak to the locals pomarao flooded to an incredible level a large valley river rose by approx 40ftnot flooding but submerging a cafe bar that normally sat 20 ft above water level , the owner blames the water authorities not the weather when the dams reached a dangerous level they all released water at the same time a stipulated 85% her point that in constant rain they could have started releasing the water earlier and coordinating the release instead of all releasing there excess at the same time onto a river that’s tidal so already trying to rise, the two dams above pomarao released into a riverbed already trying to handle a release from the dams below,
Valencia in general was subject to the Red Warning (Danger to Human Life), and the Civil Rescue Service issued a 'Do not travel' warning for the region, as I outlined on my earlier Post.
We were quite shocked, because we had been walking along the promenade section in Moncofa, in glorious sunshine, with no more than a mild breeze that wasn't enough to stop me sweating under my windcheater!
The promenade is some 300m from the M/home street parking; as we turned at right angles to the streets that lead up to the parking we were hit by repeated wind gusts that just about blew us to a standstill. The closer we got to the parking, the fierce the wind became, blowing directly from the Aire, across the (newly cleared) building plots that were abandoned in the Financial Crash. These plots have new chain fences, erected in the previous 10-14 days (several sections will need reinstalling for a 3rd time after the wind gusts took them out of their holes ...) and there are at least 3 areas where building work has been stop/start recently, so lots of loose scaffold poles, piles of building blocks, some stored at about 5m height for the resumption of work. So lots of material to blow and cause damage
Then the Emergency Warnings started by text to everyone's phones, so to describe it as a media hype is disingenuous. Unless the woman killed in Barcelona died because of circumstances not remotely connected to the weather.
A complete change of weather in less than 300m shows that a Weather Alert for a Region cannot cover every nook and cranny, and if we had stopped at a cafe in the promenade breeze, instead of walking around the corner, we may well have been blissfully unaware of the deteriorating weather. Let's revisit the topic in about 6 months to see what the insurers, loss Adjusters, Civil Authorities et al report the cost of the damage to be. A little more than 'replace the 15 roof tiles and fit 3m of new guttering, leaving the area clean (apart from our cement laden boot prints) - for cash 750€' I'll wager ...
Steve