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The sum of several adverse phenomena, including the storm Filomena, is causing historic snowfalls that will last Saturday in the interior of the peninsula and that, as of Sunday, will give way to days of extreme cold, with temperatures below 5ºC in the plateaus.
It has taken several atmospheric ingredients to combine to cause chaos and activate the highest level of alert in large areas of Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha.
All this,
one year after the 'no winter' of 2020, the warmest of the century
.
The heavy snowfalls will continue on Saturday until leaving "areas of the Iberian system where
more than 30 centimeters of snow
may accumulate
in just 24 hours
," said Rubén del Campo, spokesman for the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) on Friday.
«In areas such as the capital of Madrid, we are most likely facing the most important snowfall of the 21st century so far.
Perhaps
we would have to go back to the snowfall of February 1984 or that of March 1971
to find similar precedents.
The persistent snows from Friday night to Saturday showed that the prediction was not at all exaggerated.
Early in the evening on Friday, the Madrid City Council cut traffic on various streets and the main ring roads, and established the use of chains, which did not prevent many vehicles from being trapped.
After the airport closed, train journeys were suspended and numerous branches fell, including entire trees, unable to support the weight of the curdled flakes.
And the snow kept falling, and falling ...
The storm we are experiencing, which is expected to be followed by a cold wave next week, is not only due to the storm Filomena, which continues its way from the Canary Islands, on which it was on Thursday, to the north of the Peninsula.
Before the emergence of this phenomenon, "
January has already started with freezing temperatures
and well below normal", which are due to an "invasion of polar air," according to Mar Gómez, Ph.D. meteorology from 'eltiempo.es'.
The invasion of polar air since the beginning of the month lowered the thermometers and has stayed with us during these days.
"Here we have the first ingredient: cold, necessary for the formation of snow," explained this expert.
The second element that comes into play is, now, Filomena, a humid mass of air, warmer than the accumulated polar cold with which it has joined in the Peninsula.
The humidity it brings is "
the other ingredient we need
", along with low temperatures, for snow to be produced.
The third -and last- phenomenon, as detailed by Gómez, is the presence in the west of the Peninsula of what in meteorology is defined as a trough, which "refers to the rise of
masses of warm and humid air along a elongated zone
of low atmospheric pressure, which is located between two areas of higher pressure ”.
Combination of factors
Friday and Saturday are being the days of greatest intensity because
the three ingredients have come together
, “so that the center of the storm, the trough and the cold air are precisely combined, leaving generous snowfalls, especially in the center of the country ».
The result is what we are seeing: "
An exceptional and quite unusual situation in recent decades,
" especially in the center of the peninsula, Gómez valued.
In all red alert areas -including Madrid, Toledo, Cuenca, Guadalajara and Albacete- it is expected that, between Friday and Saturday, the snow will reach a thickness of about 20 centimeters.
Large amounts of deposited snow will also contribute to two other adverse effects.
In the first place, and more immediately, "the phenomenon of the blizzard will appear, that is, large volumes of snow will be lifted by the south wind," Del Campo warned.
"You have to be very careful with this phenomenon," he insisted, as it often occurs on roads and "causes a considerable decrease in visibility."
After the snows, the cold
As of Sunday, the situation will change due to the anticyclone that comes from the Atlantic, and the snows will leave us.
But they will still contribute to the
next adverse effect that awaits us: intense cold
.
«Previously fallen snow, which will accumulate on the ground in large areas -in the interior, above all-, as well as the presence of clear skies and calm wind, will provide very suitable conditions for generalized frosts to be registered, especially on the two plateaus, where it
will clearly drop below 5ºC
, ”analyzed Del Campo.
The current snows and the imminent cold wave are not incompatible, Gómez recalled, with the general warming of the climate.
"At the moment nothing prevents us from occasionally having important episodes of snowfall or even severe winters,
but the general trend of increasing temperatures continues
."
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