 "A woman looks out from her balcony as vehicles are trapped in the street during flooding in Valencia. AP")
When rain poured down on Monday (October 28), people in the Spanish region of Valencia celebrated. However, when the downpour continued for the next 24 hours, the joy turned to sorrow — as the torrential rain triggered the deadliest floods in the country, killing at least 95 people.
Spanish officials are expecting to find more bodies in the European country’s deadliest flood in more than 50 years. Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has declared three days of national mourning , starting today (October 31), as the extreme conditions continue, restricting some rescue efforts.
Officials note that areas in southern and eastern Spain — including cities such as Valencia, Murcia and Malaga — received more than a month’s worth of rain in a day. In the region of Andalusia, it was four times the amount of rain that usually falls in all of October.
But is the torrential downpour just another act of nature — unavoidable and inevitable? Scientists are of the opinion that the deluge is the result of a weather phenomenon known as a “gota fría,” or cold drop. It is also called a “DANA,” the acronym for “depresión aislada en niveles altos,” or isolated depression at high altitudes.
How bad have the rains been in Spain?
The heavy rain, which began on Monday and continued until the next day, has unleashed torrents of muddy water surging through cities, towns and villages, trapping people in their homes, bringing down trees, and cutting off roads and railway lines.
Until now, officials have put down the death toll as 95 . However, as rescue operations continue, they expect the toll to rise.
Visuals coming from the areas affected show bridges washed away, and dozens of roads being left impassable. Additionally, 155,000 customers are in the dark across Valencia, as they have lost electricity there. Damage to roads and bridges has left rescuers struggling to reach some areas, officials said.
Esther Gomez, a Socialist town councillor in Ribarroja del Turia, an affected area, told AFP, “We went from being in a place where nothing is happening to there being such a huge flood in a matter of minutes.”
Others also recounted the harrowing moment the floods came crashing down on them. Guillermo Serrano Pérez, a 21-year-old from Paiporta, near Valencia, told BBC, “When the water started to rise, it came as a wave. It was like a tsunami.”
The floods prompted condolences from Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as well as King Felipe. The PM addressing the victims of the floods, said: “All of Spain weeps with all of you… We won’t abandon you.”
Meanwhile, King Felipe of Spain offered his support to the families of the dead and missing, saying he was heartbroken by the news of the flooding and deaths. “I’m sending strength, encouragement and all the necessary support to all those affected,” he said. “We recognise and appreciate all the local and regional authorities and the emergency and security services as they continue with the titanic task they have been carrying out since the very first moment.”
What is DANA?
Meteorologists and weather experts have attributed the deadly floods to a phenomenon known as the gota fría, or “cold drop”. It is also known as DANA in Spain.
This occurs when cold air descends over the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. This results in atmospheric instability, causing hotter, moist air on the surface of the sea to rise quickly, leading to the formation of dense, towering cumulonimbus clouds in a matter of hours. These clouds then dump heavy rain in parts of Spain.
The weather system’s origins date back to 1886 when German scientists introduced the idea of “kaltlufttropfen”, or cold air drop, to describe high altitude disturbance but without apparent reflection on the surface.
The eastern and southern parts of Spain are susceptible to this phenomenon due to its position between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Warm, humid air masses and cold fronts meet in a region where mountains favour the formation of storm clouds and rainfall.
DANA as it is locally known can sometimes provoke large hail storms and tornadoes as seen this week.
According to Ruben del Campo, the spokesperson for Spain’s weather agency — Aemet — said that DANA was one of the three most intense such storms in the last century in the Valencia region. “Forecasts were in line with what happened. But in an area between Utiel and Chiva, in the province of Valencia, rainfall exceeded 300 litres per square metre,” del Campo was quoted as telling ABC News, adding, “In that area, storm systems formed and regenerated continuously.”
Is this related to climate change?
While DANA is a common occurrence in Spain, scientists are predicting that global warming is making storms in many regions more intense. Warmer air holds, and releases, more water. The Mediterranean is also getting hotter, hitting its highest-ever-recorded temperature in August.
Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, told Reuters, “We’re going to see more of these flash floods in the future. This has the fingerprints of climate change on it, these terribly heavy rainfalls, and these devastating floods.”
Professor Cloke added that even early warnings of heavy rain based on reliable forecasts did little to prevent the fatalities and people needed to understand the real danger.
Are these the worst floods Spain has seen?
The deluge brings back painful memories from 1996 when 87 people died after torrential rain hit a campsite in the Pyrenees Mountains.
The floods are also among the worst in Europe. The most recent ones occurred in July 2021, killing 243 people in Germany, Belgium, Romania, Italy and Austria.
With inputs from agencies