ARNEDO – We have already seen the phenomenon in the province of Valencia, where as a result one person was killed and dozens injured at a festival in Cullera. Now it hit Arnedo in La Rioja.
In terms of weather, the end of summer in Spain is not so good. However, some heavy rain showers do the country good. They also help the fire brigade in various provinces to extinguish the forest fires that are still raging.
Recently, the municipality of La Bisbal d’Emporda in Girona was hit by a hailstorm with exceptionally large hailstones. Furthermore, some reached a diameter of up to 11 centimetres. One of the tragic consequences of this was the death of a 20-month-old baby after a large hailstone hit her on the head. Last Thursday, two tourists in Mallorca were killed by the weather. They were struck by lightning on the beach of Cala Mesquida in Capdepera on Mallorca.
“Significant weather change”
In these early days of September, the remnants of Hurricane Danielle leave a “significant change in the weather”. This has been felt over much of the peninsula. Althought it is still summer, it feels like the first autumn storm with gusts of wind, widespread and heavy rains. Furthermore, there has been a significant drop in maximum temperatures.
Hurricane wind in Arnedo
On Monday afternoon, the weather brought complicated conditions to the city of Arnedo in La Rioja. High winds caused a lot of material damage to the roof of the arena. Trees were also uprooted, branches fell on cars and several streets were blocked.
Experts explain that what happened was a ‘hot blowout’ a ‘reventón caliente’. The mayor of the city, Javier García, confirmed to broadcaster Cadena SER of La Rioja that they have not yet recovered from the shock. “It’s impressive how in a few minutes a huge snowstorm started, a hurricane wind, almost a tornado accompanied by a lot of rain. Within that short time, I was already called by firefighters because the roof in the arena had given way. The image was Dantesque”.
Rain helps extinguish forest fire at Los Guájares
The good news about the changed weather conditions is that the intense rain helped the fire brigade put out the forest fire in Los Guájares (Granada). This followed a night of “panic”, according to the mayor of Granada El Pinar, the city closest to the flames.
The sudden rain came just hours after the Junta de Andalucía declared level 1 of the forest fire emergency plan and forced residents of the small towns of Acebuches and Ízbor (belonging to the municipality of El Pinar) to stay in their homes.
Weather forecast for today
In much of Spain, it seems that autumn has arrived. There is a lot of strong wind, and rain has fallen in many places. Moreover, the temperature in the eastern half of the country has dropped by almost 11 degrees. That is the result of a front related to storm Danielle that is on the coast of Lisbon and brings a lot of clouds.
The main drop in temperature occurs in Cuenca and Jaén (11 degrees less from Monday), and Albacete, Córdoba and Soria (10º less), and notably in Guadalajara, Huesca, Madrid and Teruel (9º less); Ciudad Real, Granada, Lleida and Zaragoza (8º less); Pamplona and Toledo (7º less), and Ávila, Logroño and Segovia (6º less). The hottest capitals are Bilbao and Palma (35º degrees), Girona (34º) and Alicante and Santander (32º). In contrast, it gets colder in Ávila (21º) and León, Pontevedra, Segovia and Soria (23º).
Strong wind gusts
Strong wind gusts of up to 80 km/h will hit areas in Ávila, Burgos, La Rioja, León, Lleida, Madrid, Navarra, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, Toledo and Zamora.
