Storm Konrad arrives in Spain: Aemet activates new warnings for heavy rain and snow in these areas

The rain continues to fall in Spain. With the exception of some northern provinces, cloudy skies and precipitation in the form of rain have been the general weather pattern in recent weeks.

Storm Jana has been the cause of the latest fronts that have lashed the country with heavy downpours, leaving numerous incidents in many parts of Spain, such as increased river flows, floods and even the disappearance of a man in Murcia.

The large accumulations of water that have fallen in recent days have been announced in advance by the state meteorological agency (Aemet) in the form of warnings, issuing both yellow and amber warnings and red warnings, the most extreme ones, for cases in which hundreds of millimetres were expected to be recorded in a short period of time.

As we enter the middle of this week of March, the situation does not seem to be very different, as Aemet has warned of the arrival of a new storm.

The name of this one is Konrad and it was the Portuguese meteorological service which has given it this name, making it the eleventh storm of this season. It is associated with fronts that "will leave abundant rain on the Iberian Peninsula on Wednesday and Thursday". Aemet has indicated.

This new storm called Konrad enters this Wednesday, 12 March through the west of the Spanish mainland: "It will introduce a mass of humid air that will make the skies, which initially are not very cloudy in most of the country, become very cloudy or overcast, with widespread rainfall, more likely in the northern third and in the southwest quadrant. Rainfall during the afternoon is likely to become persistent and/or heavy in the Strait of Gibraltar".

Looking ahead to Thursday, Aemet forecasts heavy and/or persistent rainfall in the southern third of the Spanish mainland, where heavy accumulations could occur. "It is possible we will see the appearance of scattered thunderstorms and hail often accompanying the showers," said the agency. In Andalucía, for example, there are yellow warnings throughout the day for rain, wind and thunderstorms, a situation that is also forecast for the autonomous Spanish city of Ceuta, bordering Morocco on the North African coast.

For Friday, 14 March, storm Konrad is expected to move eastwards, "so that rainfall, although it will continue to be widespread, will be less intense on the Atlantic coast, while in the Mediterranean, Balearic Islands and around the Alboran Sea off the Costa del Sol and Strait of Gibraltar, may be locally strong and/or persistent and be accompanied by storms, with hail often". In addition, a "humid northerly flow in the Cantabrian Sea" may bring rain to this coastal area.

Regarding the temperatures, not too many noticeable changes are expected overall, although they will gradually decrease as Friday and the weekend approach.

Although it will only occur in mountain areas, snowfall is expected with this new storm and will intensify as the days go by. From today, 12 March, it may fall in mountains in the northern half and southeast, with the elevation between 1,300 and 1,800 metres, from north to south. The following day, snowfall will continue in the main mountain environments of the northern and south-eastern half, with an elevation around 1,200/1,600 m at the beginning dropping at the end of the day in the north to 800/1,000m.

Therefore, on Friday this level is expected to remain low, leaving snow accumulations that may become significant in almost all mountain areas in the northern half of the country and their surroundings.