It's stormy in Spain.

Again at the edge of the BBC Forecast Chart but appeared to show plenty of rain for South and West Spain, also East Portugal!

Add in more rain towards Barcelona.
 
jumar said:
Just watched an interview given by a Spanish gentleman....it was recorded in one of the worst hit areas, known to us...in fact an area we are sometimes at this time of the year.
Many lives lost there....the man said. " It wasn't even raining where the incident happened" but the water had accumulated in the mountains and took this village with incredible force....one 90 year old claimed never to have experienced a Dana as bad in his lifetime....so sad for the region of Valencia and Spain in general🇪🇦
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I was wondering about that. I've visited Oman and in some area there are long bridges over dry river beds, not a drop of water in them. Perhaps for years they are like this. Then just occasionally a storm in the mountains occurs and floodwaters rush down to the coast along these previously dry water courses, sweeping anything away in there path.

This mechanism has caused fatalities in Europe too. Someone can be camped by a river and experiences no rain so think they are safe. Meanwhile, in the hills or mountains where the river rises heavy rain is falling...

Looking at the Terrain overlay in Google maps, Valencia is surrounded by mountains although they are some distance away. I suspect a lot of the floodwaters would have come from the mountains but there's also a lot of flat ground around Valencia which from the forecast I saw did catch the rain. So perhaps the floods were caused by a combination of mountain runoff and rain falling on the plain and overwhelming local rivers. Except of course in the case of the man interviewed, which might have been on the edge of the storm.

Massively tragic however it happened. :(

The name Valencia doesn't appear on the map below but it's at the centre of all the red bits.

Screenshot_20241031-065714.png
 
DBK said:
I was wondering about that. I've visited Oman and in some area there are long bridges over dry river beds, not a drop of water in them. Perhaps for years they are like this. Then just occasionally a storm in the mountains occurs and floodwaters rush down to the coast along these previously dry water courses, sweeping anything away in there path.

This mechanism has caused fatalities in Europe too. Someone can be camped by a river and experiences no rain so think they are safe. Meanwhile, in the hills or mountains where the river rises heavy rain is falling...

Looking at the Terrain overlay in Google maps, Valencia is surrounded by mountains although they are some distance away. I suspect a lot of the floodwaters would have come from the mountains but there's also a lot of flat ground around Valencia which from the forecast I saw did catch the rain. So perhaps the floods were caused by a combination of mountain runoff and rain falling on the plain and overwhelming local rivers. Except of course in the case of the man interviewed, which might have been on the edge of the storm.

Massively tragic however it happened. :(

The name Valencia doesn't appear on the map below but it's at the centre of all the red bits.

View attachment 972394
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Exactly John, however the amount of rain that actually fell is incomprehensible.
People still park in Ramblas because in that location it's not raining....it was not uncommon for vehicles to be washed out and stranded on beaches...also see what gus-lopez has written....he experienced this first hand a few years ago...
Your map show major roads in Spain still impassable with many HGVs still stranded...
 
Our current plan is to leave Portugal on Monday and head towards Malaga. We have a few area Autocaravannas picked out on route between Seville and Malaga; does anyone know if that area (see below pic) is badly affected? I don’t want to add to the problems by visiting if they are facing more important challenges right now!

IMG_4962.jpeg


Edit: just realised my red doodle is ever so slightly (unintentionally) phallic. 🤦‍♂️
 
We left Malaga yesterday afternoon. There was a complete band of muddy water stretching out a good 600m into the sea along the costs as far as we could see until we disappeared into the clouds. I feel really sorry for all those folk
 
Carpmart said:
Our current plan is to leave Portugal on Monday and head towards Malaga. We have a few area Autocaravannas picked out on route between Seville and Malaga; does anyone know if that area (see below pic) is badly affected? I don’t want to add to the problems by visiting if they are facing more important challenges right now!

View attachment 972462

Edit: just realised my red doodle is ever so slightly (unintentionally) phallic. 🤦‍♂️
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We drove along the A340 from La Cala to Malaga Airport yesterday at 10:30am. The road was running well. The aire at La Cala looked okay as did the castle aire. The Rio Fuengirola was awell up, but that is fairly normal when there is really heavy rain. If you are planning on dropping in to La Cala, they have the fresh water turned off and you are not allowed to discharge any waste. Safe travels.
 
My heart goes out to all affected.

Mess with nature and she will bite back harder than one could ever imagine.

Will there be a disaster appeal?
 
Wh05apk said:
Unfortunately the front row only takes up to 8m, were 7.9m!, stayed with old van last year, not so good as further back with poor view, but as you say it is convenient for Málaga.
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We stayed last year at the front, second from the end right hand side, and we are 9.2m.
The two pitches at either end of the front row can take larger MH's.
 
Joethejoiner said:
They did
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They all do.As I posted before they are all mad.
"Oh it only happens possibly once every 40 years" Really ? That might have applied 50 + years ago but here where I live it has happened 3 times in the last 22 years?

DBK said:
would have come from the mountains but there's also a lot of flat ground around Valencia which from the forecast I saw did catch the rain.
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Exactly what happened to the A7 Autovia del Mediteraneo back in 2012. You only had to look at an OS map to see that the fluvial area ,the flood plain , encompassed some 8kms & in there wisdom they had channeled it through a 200m space under the autovia 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️Then they wondered why it had taken out the bridge supports on the south bound side?
Rather than apologising they looked around for someone to blame ending up with some company that held a legal licence for extrraction of materials from the rambla but not even anywhere near the autovia & blamed them .
" the extraction was being done in a place not deemed suitable & because of that altered the flow of the water across the flood plain"??? Except that those doing the blaming had granted them a licence in exactly that area ??
really you can't make this stuff up. The company proved they only extracted in the area that they had been granted a licence for & that it was nothing to do with them.
What also didn't help was having tried to funnel 8 linear kms of water through a 200m space they then compounded the damage by allowing the building of the Lorca>Àguilas dual carriageway through the flood plain but elevated 3kms of the roadway where the water flow was.
Unfortunately they just put in 4m wide x 4m high tubes in pairs . Off the top of my head I think there are 6 pairs at the most. basically they built a 3m dam* & all the water once across & past us could not get past the "dam". At one point it was washing on to the road ,which is between 5 & 6m above the ground. All those living in the area had there houses submerged. The friend of a friend I mentioned before ,Antonio, his 70 year old widowed mum said " In all my life I have ever only had to use a mop to clear up but now we have that road there we have lost everything".

* All they had to do was elevate the whole of trhe 3kms on stilts & it would never have occurred.
Hopefully if they haven't learnt there lesson they will look at what the AVE high speed train line is doing & where it comes out of the tunnel under Lorca It will be going up in the air for some 15kms right across what is shown on the OS maps as the flood plain
 
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I think Alicante to Burgos looks like a better route although I wanted to stop at Haro.
 
Jo662 said:
I wonder if they can get that repaired in the next couple of weeks .
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I can't remember how long it took to replace the soutbound carriageway here in Lorca in 2012.Fortunately the northbound side was undamaged & allowed two way trafiic until repairs were complete.
Might be different around the Valencia ring road as the traffic is far,far heavier.
 
bigtree said:
I think Alicante to Burgos looks like a better route although I wanted to stop at Haro.
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I wonder why?

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olley said:
We stayed last year at the front, second from the end right hand side, and we are 9.2m.
The two pitches at either end of the front row can take larger MH's.
Click to expand...

I’m a tad longer and they weren’t very accommodating last autumn! 🥲 Booked for this year so should be fine! 🤞
 
Carpmart said:
Our current plan is to leave Portugal on Monday and head towards Malaga. We have a few area Autocaravannas picked out on route between Seville and Malaga; does anyone know if that area (see below pic) is badly affected? I don’t want to add to the problems by visiting if they are facing more important challenges right now!

View attachment 972462

Edit: just realised my red doodle is ever so slightly (unintentionally) phallic. 🤦‍♂️
Click to expand...
We are in Granada right now and it rained a little this morning but is now dry. The forecast is more rain but it hasn't happened yet. No sign of storms and no alerts for this area.

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Awful for everyone involved. Nice to see that the MotoGP boys are pushing for the final round, which was due to be held at Valencia, to be moved - not because it's not safe but because they feel that any money that would have been spent getting the circuit ready should be spent helping the locals out.
 
Unfortunately there are some stupid people around that drive motorhomes, but I might add are not Funsters...for example our neighbours, who set off in their motorhome this morning heading for the UK...the first stopover was near Peniscola, so from here in Murcia driving on the A7...Yes you've guessed it... straight into the worst hit areas of Spain...Valencia...their 4.5 hour journey took double that....and on arrival they called me to tell me there are cars everywhere and the motorway was closed...it was a nightmare they said...I did the best I could to control my feelings and not say how stupid they are..
They did say...we have no options we had go, I replied another route ?
No we like Peniscola....Such stupidity
 
Puddleduck said:
My heart goes out to all affected.

Mess with nature and she will bite back harder than one could ever imagine.

Will there be a disaster appeal?
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There already is N332 police pages on Facebook

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