It's six years since three tornadoes and a supercell wreaked havoc in an inland Malaga town

Just as night was falling on 26 August 2019, near Campillos, alarms went off among the residents of this inland Malaga town, set within the Guadalteba region. Many could hardly believe what they were seeing and reached for their mobiles to capture and share on social media and WhatsApp groups the scene in a sky that seemed enraged: lightning strikes, hail and a chain of up to three tornadoes linked to a storm with supercell characteristics. A meteorological phenomenon described as "unusual" by Spain state meteorological agency (Aemet) and which this week is six years old.

So striking and unusual was this meteorological episode that Aemet even carried out a subsequent study to analyse its characteristics in depth, the paths of the tornadoes, the spatial distribution of the electrical discharges recorded and the havoc caused.

Although there were no personal injuries, there was damage in Campillos and in the neighbouring Sierra de Yeguas, mostly caused by the second of the three tornadoes: "At least six warehouses were destroyed, more than 60 goats were killed and damage was caused to power lines, fields and regional roads. Numerous trees suffered varying degrees of damage according to eyewitnesses and field inspections, from falling branches to small trees uprooted, as well as numerous objects that flew away," read the official meteorology report.

On that day in the final stretch of August 2019, a multitude of stormy episodes developed throughout the interior of the peninsula, some of them, according to Aemet, "as visually spectacular" as the aforementioned tornadic supercell of Campillos. "Thanks to the number of meteorological amateurs spread throughout the Spanish mainland, a huge amount of graphic material is available, which facilitates a more accurate analysis of the events," the state agency highlighted in the report.

Local Malaga weather expert José Luis Escudero also recalls this week on his blog 'Tormentas y rayos' (storms and lightning) those three tornadoes. “The core of the storm and other factors in the middle and upper layers gave rise to a supercell as it passed through this area. In some parts of the province, more than 50mm were recorded, accompanied by huge hail and several tornadoes,” Escudero said.

Supercells are storms with a high degree of organisation that usually produce severe phenomena at the surface. Aemet explains that they are storms with a deep and persistent mesocyclone - a vortex of air inside the storm that ascends and rotates around a vertical axis with a horizontal width of between three and ten km, approximately.

Of the three tornadoes associated with the strong storm that day, the first occurred between 8pm and 8.35pm and affected an area between Martín de la Jara and Sierra de Yeguas, approximately 5.5 km north of the town of Campillos. Various images and videos show that it passed very close to a double row of wind turbines.

The second tornado was observed, according to several eyewitnesses, between 8.45pm and 9.15pm in an area of agricultural and livestock farms around Campillos and had a path of at least 700 metres in length until it was lost track of. "From the analysis of the damage caused by this tornado we estimate that it could have been of category EF1 (between 135 and 175 km/h of maximum gust), although probably in the upper part of this interval and without ruling out that it could have reached category EF2," Aemet states in the study.

Finally, the third tornado was detected at around 9pm, already in the final stage of the supercell. From the photos and videos available, it can be seen that it took place to the west of the town of Campillos, although, according to the study, it is not possible to determine its exact duration. "We only have evidence of this tornado from photos and videos of witnesses. It occurred late in the day, when it was getting dark, and there are no reports of damage, so it is very difficult to reconstruct the area exactly," the report highlighted.