🔗 Share this article

Once again, Portugal and Spain find themselves battling the aftermath of significant inundation after Storm Claudia unleashed heavy rain and strong winds the previous week.

The Storm's Origin and Path

This meteorological event formed from an area of low pressure that had beforehand driven unseasonably early freezing temperatures and snowfall through eastern parts of Canada and the north-eastern United States during the beginning of the eleventh month.

This storm tracked eastwards across the Atlantic Ocean over the second weekend of November before losing momentum and stopping to the northwestern area of the Iberian region, snared in a dip of an increasingly amplified atmospheric river.

Impact on Iberia

Galicia in north-west Spain was the first affected, with three to six inches of rain coming down along its western coastline in just a single day up to Wednesday evening as a leisurely moving system of rain pushed across the western sectors of the Iberian peninsula.

Additional rainfall and electrical storms on Thursday last week caused inundations to Portuguese localities where an older couple lost their lives in the capital Lisbon after floodwaters from the swollen Tagus entered their home as they were asleep.

Unsettled atmospheric states persisted into the weekend, with a tornado tearing through a camping ground and a adjacent hotel in Albufeira in the south in southern Portugal on the weekend's Saturday, killing an British woman aged 85 and injuring 28 individuals.

Wider Effects across Europe

Claudia had more extensive impacts across western Europe. By drawing warm air from the subtropics, the system helped temperatures in south-west France to 29.8C (85.6F), the country's highest recorded November temperature.

By the following Friday, this warm and humid air mass met a cold air mass across more northern parts of Europe, generating a precipitation zone stretching from the west of Ireland to Russia.

In the Britain, this stalling band of rain brought exceptionally large precipitation amounts, resulting in major inundations in the Welsh region.

As the storm progressively weakens early this week, the cold air mass will move towards the south, providing the continent its initial glimpse of winter.

Related Incidents in California, USA

The Golden State experienced a so-called atmospheric river last week, delivering heavy rain and high-velocity gusts that resulted in sudden inundations and debris flows in zones impacted by wildfires previously in the year.

In excess of 50 millimetres of rain was recorded in the southern region of the state on Friday, with a another 50 millimetres widely across the state on Saturday.

In excess of 100 millimetres of rain was deposited on shoreline regions of Southern CA in all, attaining eight inches in total in areas of elevated terrain.

This meteorological feature is a concentrated stream of tropical, saturated air originating from the tropical or subtropical regions.

Burn scar areas including Palisades and Altadena suffered the worst of the rapid inundations and landslides, forcing residents to flee.

Across California, a 71-year-old man lost his life after his automobile was swept off a submerged bridge, and a young girl aged seven and her dad were swept into the ocean by big swells on the California's Central Coast.