A storm called Adam is a water budget with a deadline

Spain’s civil protection authority, working from the state weather agency AEMET’s forecasts, has kept an alert in place for very strong and persistent showers and thunderstorms along the Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands from Saturday to at least Monday, the first high-impact dana, an isolated upper-level low, of the season¹. Sunday and Monday are expected to be the worst days¹.

The numbers are written as water, not wind. Around Cabo de La Nao and the Pitiusas, Ibiza and Formentera, more than 150 litres per square metre could fall in 12 hours, with 80 litres possible along the coasts of Alicante, Murcia and eastern Catalonia; over the whole episode local totals of 150 to 300 litres are possible¹. Soils already saturated by earlier rain raise the risk of flash floods in streams and ramblas, the dry riverbeds that fill in hours¹.

It follows several days of temperatures that AEMET called anomalously high for the time of year; a cold front is due to bring them back to normal or slightly below¹. Heat, then a deluge, then a chill: the season’s three invoices in one weekend.

The constructive part sits in the same document. It is a plain, public list of what to do: do not drive through flooded stretches, do not park in flood-prone spots, move essentials upstairs if you have to leave¹. Warnings like this, issued two days ahead, are one of the most cost-effective things a state does.