It's time to wrap up warm again. File image. SUR

Dramatic change in weather this week as polar air mass arrives in Spain

As of Wednesday, temperatures will drop throughout the mainland and rainfall will become widespread in the northern half of the country, Meteored forecasters warn

SUR

Tuesday, 21 February 2023, 09:09

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Over the next few days, «a big change in the weather» is expected in Spain, experts from Meteored are warning. «It could be a new chapter of quite powerful instability,» Samuel Biener, an expert at the tiempo.com weather portal explained.

According to his forecast this Tuesday, 21 February, a Dana - a high altitude depression that can often lead to a cold drop, will be reabsorbed by a mass of polar air and will cross the north of mainland Spain as a trough.

«This will generate a big increase in widespread cloud, which will leave more heavy rains and storms and with a greater likelihood in the northwest, although they will affect the rest of the mainland areas in a more dispersed way,» said Biener.

It will be the prelude to a radical change that is expected in the middle of the week: «On Wednesday there will be a dramatic change in the weather. A polar trough will begin to form and head towards the northern half of the mainland, while a high pressure area will rise in the Atlantic, and the wind will shift north-northwest, especially on the Cantabrian slope. Temperatures will drop throughout Spain. The rains will be locally persistent and intense on the Cantabrian coast, although they will end up affecting other points in the northern half of the mainland, and may appear, in a much more anecdotal way, in other areas of the mainland. The snow level will drop to 1,500 metres in the Cantabrian mountains,« Meteored pointed out.

Faced with Thursday, the situation does not improve: «On Thursday a bag of cold air will arrive at height above the mainland. The skies will be overcast in the northern half of the country, with locally strong or persistent rainfall in the north of Galicia, the Cantabrian coast and the Pyrenees. The snow level will be below 1,000 metres in the centre and northwest, while it will drop to 1,200 metres in the Pyrenees and the Iberian system. Showers will also be generated in the Canary Islands. Temperatures will drop across the board, with a mid-winter atmosphere in the interior and in the northern half,« the experts add.

Mediterranean storm at the end of the week

At the end of the week, the scenario could become even more complicated, since the high-altitude cold air pocket will move towards the Mediterranean, where a cyclogenesis will take place, «although for now there is no consensus on where it will do so», said the forecasters from the specialist weather portal.

The rains will be directed to the Mediterranean slope, where they could be stronger as a result of the resulting storm. According to the Meteored reference model, locally heavy showers and snowfall are expected in the east and the Balearic Islands for the coming weekend. The rains will continue on the Cantabrian slope.

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