Wet lockdown for Southern Spain
THE weather has probably not been uppermost in people’s minds during the State of Alarm, but anyone looking out the window in the southern part of Spain has probably noticed that there has been plenty of the wet stuff around. Statistics released this week have confirmed that, with Valencia, Almeria, Alicante and Murcia provinces all receiving 80% more rain than usual and 30% less sunshine. Aemet, the Spanish Met Office, said that March was the seventh wettest in the region in 55 years, with 92 litres of rain. However, some residents have short memories and as recently as March 2018 there was three and a half times the average rainfall. Some parts of the country had good weather with the Canary Islands, Aragon, the Basque Country, Navarra and the central Pyrenees all having roughly 30% more sunshine than normal.
The wet trend is set to continue with showers and rain still on the cards for much of the immediate future according to the not-always-reliable long range forecast. The temperatures are starting to creep up, although it may not be noticeable without the sunshine. Many people’s attitude is that as long as the sun comes out when the beaches and green spaces eventually re-open, they will settle for that. From a health point of view, the cloud and rain has also made people’s decision to stay at home easier as opposed to say the UK where the unseasonably hot weather has left many sorely tempted to stretch or break the confinement rules.
