Due to extremely heavy rainfall, more and more rivers overflowed their banks on Tuesday, especially in Valencia, but also in the Mediterranean regions of Murcia and Andalusia, which are also very popular with tourists, as well as in Castile-La Mancha. The weather service Aemet spoke of a “historic storm”, the worst of its kind in the Valencia region, where the most deaths were recorded.
In some places, as much rain fell in one day as usual in a year – according to Aemet, in some places in the Valencia region up to 490 liters of precipitation per square meter. Within a very short time, streets turned into rivers and streams turned into raging torrents that swept away people, cars and trees as well as infrastructure and caused great devastation in many places.
The storm was triggered by the weather phenomenon “Dana” or “cold drop” (gota fría). It occurs frequently in the Spanish Mediterranean region in the months of September and October and is based on strongly fluctuating sea and air temperatures. The phenomenon occurs when the first Atlantic low foothills push over the warm Mediterranean with cold, moist air.
Memories of the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley
In view of these sudden violent weather events, quite a few people in Germany were reminded of the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley, in which at least 135 people died in July 2021.
