The extreme conditions in eastern Spain which saw Valencia get a year’s worth of rain in just eight hours can be blamed on an event locally known as Depresion Aislada en Niveles Altos (DANA).<\/p>\n
This weather situation occurs when the jet stream high up in the atmosphere meanders like a river and creates a cut off area of low pressure.<\/p>\n
That can become slow moving or almost stationary, with surrounding high pressure blocking it and allowing heavy rain to fall in the same region.<\/p>\n
Spain floods latest: Disaster may not be over, warns PM<\/strong><\/p>\n Cool air from the north is drawn across the warmer Mediterranean waters, a situation known to bring severe weather to the area in late summer and autumn when the sea surface temperature is high.<\/p>\n That temperature difference can then enhance storm development and rainfall totals.<\/p>\n But rainfall amounts on Tuesday were extreme<\/strong>, with AEMET, Spain’s meteorological department, reporting 491mm in just eight hours at Chiva, near Valencia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That’s a staggering amount of rain and more than a year’s worth.<\/p>\n The October average is more like 65mm.<\/p>\n AEMET also reported 230.4mm of rain at Utiel, near Valencia, with 217.2mm of that falling in 12 hours and 141.8mm in just six hours.<\/p>\n Drought conditions and hard, baked ground can increase the risk of flash flooding, but this is probably a minor effect given the amount of rainfall observed.<\/p>\n There have also been in excess of 20,000 lightning strikes from storms since Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n The forecast shows further heavy showers and thunderstorms are likely over the next few days, which would bring further impacts.<\/p>\n A rare red weather warning – the highest level – for heavy rain is in place for the Campina gaditana region of southern Spain until the end of Wednesday.<\/p>\n Forecasts currently suggest 120mm of rain may fall in 12 hours.<\/p>\n Red weather warnings alert the public to the potential for extreme or catastrophic damage to properties, with a threat to life, especially to the vulnerable or to people in exposed areas.<\/p>\n Amber rainfall warnings – the next level down, so still serious – cover more of southern Spain, including Seville.<\/p>\n Thankfully, the weather looks much more settled later into the weekend and early next week.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The extreme conditions in eastern Spain which saw Valencia get a year’s worth of rain…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}