Adam: the warning is the infrastructure

The storm Spain calls dana Adam, a cut-off low, entered its most adverse phase on Sunday, and the state weather agency AEMET expected it to last into Monday¹. AEMET kept a red warning, its highest level, on the coast of southern Valencia province and northern Alicante, for 90 litres per square metre in an hour and accumulations of 200 litres in 12 hours and 300 in 24¹. The Balearics were lowered to orange on Sunday afternoon; Andalusia and Murcia stayed on orange¹.

The gauges were already filling. On Sunday AEMET’s stations recorded 149.6 litres per square metre in Miramar, 135.4 in Pego and 131.7 in Oliva, and the regional association Avamet measured almost 250 litres in Barx by 18:50¹. On Saturday a woman in Cabrera de Mar, north of Barcelona, was swept away while crossing a flooded street with her family; her body was found on Sunday¹. AEMET warned that much of the rain is falling on ground that is already saturated¹.

There is a temperature story underneath. Before the cold front arrived on Saturday, temperatures across the northern half of the peninsula had been about ten degrees above normal; by Sunday they were back to normal or slightly below¹.

Valencia has reason to know that the most important part of a storm is the instruction attached to it. AEMET’s spokesman, Rubén del Campo, called it “fundamental” to follow the civil-protection advice and not to travel unless strictly necessary¹. A red warning is only infrastructure if it arrives in time, is believed and is acted on. That chain, forecaster to phone to person, is now being tested on the Safor coast.

The constructive part is that the chain exists, is public and is specific: litres per hour, named coasts, named hours. AEMET expects the instability to ease from Tuesday¹. The second test comes then, in the claims and the clean-up, and it is just as dull and just as important.