“It is very difficult not to get excited about the maps that are being seen for next week,” they said in MeteoHuelva and the truth is that they are right. Not only because of the possible anticyclonic blockade over northern Europe that would displace the trajectories of Atlantic storms further south from March 6: is that long-term forecasts indicate a wetter than normal month of March (in the southwestern half of the peninsula).
Is the situation about to change?
What’s going on? What is happening is that what the models had been hinting at for weeks is being confirmed, but we didn’t quite believe it: a more than notable change in the atmospheric circulation in our environment. Right now everything seems to indicate a strong (and persistent) anticyclonic block somewhere between Greenland and Northern Europe.
And that is poetry. Because like explains meteorologist González Alemán, “this type of blockage (associated with an NAO-) is the one that most favors the continuous arrival of Atlantic storms” to our latitudes. It entails the opening of the storm corridor towards the Peninsula and, although its duration is yet to be defined, the first signs speak that it could last the whole month.
This is based on scenario analysis. After the Scandinavian blockade that “is already benefiting some regions so much these days” the Greenland blockade is “the circulation regime that is most likely to happen.” And, as always happens in meteorology with robust trends, that probability increases in magnitude with each passing hour.
ECMWF
Good news? Very good. If confirmed, it would be very good news. The latest rains have made the water reserve of the country as a whole improve compared to 2022 and 2023. A new push during the month of March would be fantastic. After all, in general terms we are still 10 points below the average of the last 10 years.
However, we must be realistic. The situation in much of the country is critical and, on paper, not even a very rainy March will serve to give them a break. The reservoirs in the province of Barcelona are already below 10% y those in Almería do not reach 8.5%. Cadiz, Málaga o Girona are below 20%.
That is many millions of people in areas with reserves 30 or 40 points below the historical average. That is to say, there are many millions of people in a situation in which, no matter how many and very imaginative ways to save water that we can think of, they live on the brink of widespread cuts.
Imagen | ECMWF
In Xataka | Spain breaks down, meteorologically speaking: rain and cold return to only half of the country