323.8 mm in 12 hours on a Madeira hillside, 84 call-outs, and a mainland that shut its schools before the first gust

In Portugal, Madeira got Storm Charles first, and it got it at night. By 03:00 local time (04:00 CET) the weather station at Chão do Areeiro, high above Funchal, had collected 323.8 litres of rain per square metre in 12 hours, according to IPMA data analysed by the island’s newspaper DNOTICIAS.PT¹. In the last six hours of that window it caught 232.1 mm, almost four times the 60 mm in six hours that triggers a red warning¹. Twice the station logged close to 50 mm in a single hour: 49.6 mm at 01:00 and 48.9 mm at 03:00 local time, both above the red line of 40 mm an hour¹.

It was not one station. Seven passed the six-hour red threshold, from São Vicente on the north coast at 141.5 mm to Prazeres in Calheta at 70.8 mm¹.

The wind was strong but, by the numbers, short of the worst. The highest gust before midnight was 128 km/h at Chão do Areeiro at 22:30 local time (23:30 CET), with 126 km/h ten minutes later at Caniçal and 102 km/h at the airport in Santa Cruz². None of those crossed the red-warning threshold for wind, which in Madeira is set above 130 km/h².

What the night cost, in call-outs. By 03:00 local time the regional civil protection service had counted 84 incidents³. Floods led with 25, then 16 landslips and 11 fallen trees³. Santa Cruz (27) and Machico (23) accounted for 50 of the 84; Funchal had 11³. Desk arithmetic: that is about 60% of all incidents in two neighbouring municipalities on the island’s east side. A high-voltage cable came down and cut power in Santa Cruz, Machico and Santana; crews from the island’s electricity company worked through the night and, the paper reports, supply has since been restored⁴.

That is the useful part of a storm story, and it is never the dramatic part. Somebody counts the incidents. Somebody puts a lorry and a chainsaw on the road at three in the morning. Somebody climbs a pole in the rain.

The mainland’s turn. IPMA’s warnings, last updated at 22:23 CET on Tuesday, put Beja, Faro and Setúbal on red for wind from 09:00 to 21:00 local time (10:00 to 22:00 CET), and Évora, Leiria, Lisboa, Portalegre and Santarém on red from 12:00 local time (13:00 CET)⁵. The text is the same for all eight: gusts up to 120 km/h, up to 140 km/h in the most exposed places⁵. Rain has its own red layer for Lisboa, Setúbal, Beja and Faro from 10:00 CET, and for Leiria, Santarém, Portalegre and Castelo Branco from 13:00 CET⁵. IPMA’s Tuesday bulletin said the centre of the low was most likely to pass between Sines and Cabo Carvoeiro, with “elevada incerteza” (high uncertainty) about track and strength, rain that could exceed 100 mm in 24 hours in places and waves that could reach 13 metres at their maximum south of Cabo Raso⁶.

The state did its part before the first gust. The government kept mainland Portugal on a state of alert for all of Wednesday and closed schools and non-essential public services⁸. Parks, gardens and woods are off-limits because of falling trees, and so are the coast, riverbanks and flood-prone areas⁸. The airport operator ANA told Lusa that operations at Lisbon, Faro and Madeira would be constrained, with cancellations expected, and asked passengers to check with their airline before setting off⁷. On Tuesday the grid operator E-Redes reported faults that left about 2,000 customers without power, mainly in the south⁸.

What this means for you. If you are in Portugal or flying there today, the instruction is boring and correct: ring the airline, stay off the seafront, keep a phone charged. If you are not, the lesson travels anyway. A good warning has a start time, an end time, a threshold and a list of what closes, published before the event by institutions that will be told on Thursday they overreacted. Let them be told.