🔗 Share this article

Portugal and Spain are once more recovering from widespread flooding in the wake of Storm Claudia brought torrential downpours and powerful gusts the previous week.

The Storm's Genesis and Journey

The storm system developed from a low-pressure zone that had beforehand driven unseasonably early freezing temperatures and snowfall through the eastern sectors of the Canadian territory and the American north-east in early November.

Claudia tracked eastwards across the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the second week of November before slowing and stalling to the north-west of the Iberian peninsula, caught in the trough of an increasingly amplified jet stream.

Effects in the Iberian Peninsula

Galicia in north-west Spain was the first affected, with three to six inches of rain falling along its western coastline in just one full day up to Wednesday evening as a slow-moving band of rain pushed across western parts of the region.

Additional rainfall and electrical storms on the following Thursday caused inundations to Portuguese localities where an elderly couple lost their lives in the capital Lisbon after floodwaters from the swollen Tagus entered their home as they slept.

Stormy conditions persisted into the weekend, with a twister devastating a campsite and a adjacent hotel in Albufeira in Portugal's south on the weekend's Saturday, fatally injuring an elderly British lady and harming two dozen and eight persons.

Wider Effects across the European continent

The storm produced wider effects across Europe's western part. By pulling tropical air from the subtropics, the system helped temperatures in south-west France to nearly 30 degrees Celsius, the nation's all-time high late autumn reading.

By Friday, this warm and humid air mass clashed with a frigid air system across the northern regions of Europe, creating a precipitation zone running from western Ireland to the Russian Federation.

In the Britain, this stalling band of rain delivered record-breaking rain accumulations, resulting in significant waterlogging in Wales.

As Claudia loses strength at the start of the week, the cold air mass will push south, providing the continent its first taste of colder weather.

Parallel Events in California, USA

California experienced a so-called atmospheric river recently, bringing torrential rain and strong winds that led to rapid flooding and mudslides in zones impacted by forest fires previously in the year.

More than 50mm of rain was recorded in the southern region of the state on last Friday, with a additional two inches across extensive areas of California on Saturday last.

Over four inches of rain was deposited on coastal parts of the state's south in all, hitting 200mm overall in spots on high ground.

An atmospheric river is a plume of warm, moist air originating from the tropics or subtropics.

Burn scar areas including Pacific Palisades and Altadena experienced the most severe the sudden floods and earth movements, forcing residents to flee.

Across California, a 71-year-old man passed away after his automobile was carried away from a submerged bridge, and a child of seven years and her dad were pulled into the Pacific by big swells on the the state's central shoreline.