As Samu Rivas saidthe image that heads this piece does not reflect what is going to happen in 240 hours. It reflects what is going to happen in three days and that is the key to everything that is going to happen. Because the four big models (GFS/ECMWF/ICON/GEM) seem to have agreed: cold, rain and a very — very — busy weekend.
What has happened? What is going to happen? What has happened is that an anticyclonic block has formed between Greenland and the Scandinavian peninsula. It is a large wall of high pressure that will interrupt the zonal flow and force the polar jet to lower latitude.
From there, there were doubts about what was going to happen. But those doubts have been dissipating: everything seems to indicate that the jet will descend so low that it will focus directly on Spain, guiding fronts and cold masses from the north.
Greeting Ingrid. According to Roberto Grandathe first fronts will affect us starting tomorrow and, from that moment, the storm Ingrid will not stop sending us “various bands of instability throughout Friday and the weekend, bringing rain, wind and snow.”
What does this mean? That a mass of maritime polar air will invade the Peninsula from the northwest. That will cause temperatures to plummet to -2 degrees on Friday, but it will also mean that it will rain (a lot) throughout the Atlantic slope.
The snow level on Friday will reach 500 meters. That is, the risk is going to be high.
And the weekend? If the models are correct, on Saturday we may see snow in many inland provincial capitals and on Sunday rain will be widespread throughout the country (except the Mediterranean coast).
Are we facing a new Filomena? It doesn’t seem plausible to meet with the amounts of snow that we saw in Madrid in January 2021, but obviously it is not impossible (unlikely, however). What is true is that every once in a while we expect an ‘Ice and Snow Apocalypse’ and most of the time nothing happens.
The important thing is to remember that a big snowfall is not necessary for Spain to collapse and the problems to grow. We better be attentive.
Image | Meteociel
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings