After a weekend of floods, deaths and evacuations, AEMET confirms that calm is coming for the New Year

Málaga, Granada, Murcia and the south of the Valencian Community have passed a complicated weekend with floods, deaths and displaced people. In fact, in some areas of the southeast the worst has not happened yet.

And people are tired: «”I feel like selling everything and leaving town: the rains are increasingly torrential”, said a neighbor from Cartama (Málaga). However, we will forget again.

We will start the year cold, yes. But also with a strong anticyclone, with fog and frost. There will be no rain except somewhere in the south/east and the Balearic Islands; something that with the night movements of New Year’s Eve, is good news.

However, the models start to draw that with the New Year there can also be a change in pattern.

A change of pattern? Starting Thursday, as explained by Duncan Wingenthe models contemplate “the rise of the Atlantic ridge towards Iceland and Greenland”: it is what experts call the “Atlantic ridge.”

It is a tongue of high pressure at altitude that bulges over the Atlantic and extends towards high latitudes. It is a wall that diverts the current from the west.

What it represents for Spain. It’s hard to saythe truth. The effect on the peninsula depends on where the dorsal ends up placed.

1. Or, close the Atlantic corridor and we have a few days of stable, dry and cold weather on the surface.
2. Or, it favors the entry of cold from the north with thermal drops, a winter sensation and snow.
3. Or, finally, the storm corridor opens with the consequent intrusion of Atlantic fronts from the Ocean. That is, rain and a slightly milder climate.

What should we expect? It is a great unknown: enormous. And taking into account that it is the key phenomenon to understand what is going to happen in the coming weeks in southern Europe, it is important. Therefore, we have to continue monitoring them closely.

Euro-Atlantic regimes modulate temperatures, energy demands and meteorological alerts. The Atlantic Crest is a piece of that puzzle and there are many things that depend on it. It is still surprising because, well, for now we are only going to see a deep, wintery cry.

Image | PolarWx

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