Thursday, January 07, 2021
Icy winter cold in sunny land
The temperature in Spain drops to minus 35 degrees
Spain is a popular holiday destination with its long beaches and hot summer days. But the European sunny country can also do winter: across the country, thick snow masses provide unusual images.
The storm “Filomena” causes record cold, lots of snow and some chaos in sunny Spain. The residents of Madrid were presented with an extremely unusual picture: In the Spanish capital, cars, trees, parks and lawns sank under heavy snow. For several hours, thick white flakes fell from the sky in the metropolis. “The snow bathes Madrid in white,” says Telemadrid television.
In other regions it snowed even heavier, especially in the north and center of the country. In Vega de Liordes in the province of León, around 400 kilometers north of Madrid, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Spain was recorded early Thursday morning at minus 35.8 degrees, according to the regional meteorological institute Noromet. “Historic record!” Tweeted Noromet. This clearly undercuts the low of minus 34.1 recorded the day before in La Llança in the Catalan Pyrenees.
“Filomena” not only provided cold and white splendor, but also caused many problems. In many places there was continuous rain, storms and high waves. In the Canary Islands, numerous flights had to be canceled due to strong winds, as the authorities announced. There were delays in rail traffic, and in some cases longer traffic jams formed on motorways and country roads despite the low volume of traffic due to the corona.
According to the meteorologists, the storm will keep Spain in suspense until at least Sunday, but sometimes also until the beginning of next week. For Friday, the national weather service Aemet initially issued the second highest orange alert for around half of the country, and even red alert was declared for three provinces in the Castile-La Mancha region south and east of Madrid. In Madrid, 20 centimeters of snow should fall on Saturday, and in the night from Monday to Tuesday, the display of the mercury column in the capital should drop to minus twelve degrees.