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Winter conditions in Southwestern Europe can be very rainy and stormy (Spain, Portugal)

Just as heads up: This forum often recommends Spain and Portugal as good destinations for winter travel in Europe. Of course they can be - or not how recent reports and videos show.

"Leonardo is the seventh storm to hit the Iberian Peninsula this year. Last week, five people died, hundreds were injured and tens of thousands were left without electricity in Portugal." This situation will stay until Saturday. And next storm Martha is already coming up.

Only storm Leonardo related:
Read short report by DW: Rains pummel Spain, Portugal, leaving 1 dead, 1 missing
Video and report by Euronews: Spain floods: Storm Leonardo forces 4,000 evacuations in Andalusia
Video and report by Euronews: Portugal on edge as Storm Leonardo triggers new flooding
Video report from Spain (e. g. Malaga) in German language by n-tv

To make this clear: these weather situations are not new to these regions how some flood marks from 1906 and 1917 on house walls show. A meteo expert explained it with a strong and not moving high-pressure zone over Northern Europe, so the storms coming in driven by Atlantic jet-streams are re-directed above Southern Europe (explanation video with animation in German language).

I just wanted to inform forum fellows about such situations; so that when doing such recommendations having this also in mind and telling this to fellow travelers.

Posted by
25254 posts

Wow!!! Thank you for the update. How much worse was Germany and France? Sounds miserable.

We (Hungary) ot some lower than average temperatures and some beautiful snow (but never more than about 3 inches), oh and a few hours of misty light rain on a few days when the temps were up, but otherwise its been normal.

Posted by
2519 posts

It's been mixed rain and snow in the Rhine Pfalz and Alsace-Lorraine pretty much since Thanksgiving.. Temps have been below, or right around freezing most of the time. Very rare days over 40, very rare blue skies. Lots of ice and fog. This is pretty normal. We did get some snow that stayed around, but not a huge amount. Some freezing rain. Christmas wasn't "white", but it started snowing directly after and then every day for a week. New Years had a high around 30f depending on where you were.

It's finally starting to warm up, and if it doesn't rain this weekend car washes will do bumper to bumper business due to all the salt on the roads.