When it seemed that the rainy episode had ended and the Region was saying goodbye to the stormy spring, which gave way to the intense heat of summer in these latitudes, a downpour of water surprised the residents of the municipalities of the Northwest and the Highlands. On the first day of summer, the rainfall fell heavily, even in the form of hail, especially in municipalities such as Moratalla, Caravaca de la Cruz and Cehegín, but also in Jumilla.
In fact, Aemet had activated a yellow warning for this Wednesday afternoon, which it raised to orange when the storm was already shaking the Northwest. The alert, valid until 10 p.m., forecast an accumulated rainfall of up to 30 liters per square meter in one hour, and extended the risk of heavy rainfall to the Altiplano for the same duration.
The Aemet, which reported that the storm also produced electrical discharges, registered up to 41 liters per square meter in one hour in Caravaca -11.6 fell in just 10 minutes in Caravaca-, although the storm managed to discharge up to 100 in many points liters.
In Moratalla, the volume of rainfall generated rivers of water and mud through the urban area that flooded streets and premises and dragged vehicles and containers throughout the area.
Impressive the Argos River as it passes through Caravaca de la Cruz #Murcia. Very complicated afternoon in the interior of the Region accumulating more than 100 mm in many points.
📸 Jose Love pic.twitter.com/gtU4BMXQsl
—Suremet (@MeteoChatSE) June 21, 2023
The heavy rains transformed the usually timid and calm Argos River into a torrent of water that overflowed at many points and showed an image unknown to date. Specifically, the Argos was about to overflow at the height of the Santa Inés bridge, in the vicinity of the west exit of the Northwest Highway towards the interior of the urban area of Caravaca de la Cruz.
The rains were so intense that streets and premises in the interior of the city of Vera Cruz were also flooded, including the Caravaca health center, whose workers tried to evacuate, armed with brushes and mops, the more than three fingers of water that covered waiting rooms, corridors and consultations, endangering computer equipment.
Members of the regional fire station, Civil Protection volunteers and local police officers had to respond to several warnings due to flooding both in the town center and in Archivel, although there is no record of personal injury.
Also in Cehegín the rain altered the course of the afternoon. In fact, from the town council, the authorities warned, through social networks, of the danger of crossing the riverbeds. “Due to the rising water caused by the torrential rains this afternoon, it has been necessary to cut traffic on the different roads that pass over the riverbeds in the different enclaves of our municipality. A lot of caution is requested,” they alerted the neighbors.
hail like golf balls
The adverse meteorological phenomena on the afternoon of this Wednesday in the Region did not stop there. The worst omens of the farmers of Barranda, Archivel and other districts of Caravaca came true when the sky closed. A hail storm destroyed the stone fruit harvest in various districts of Caravaca and in the orchards closest to the urban area. In Barranda and Archivel, the storm arrived shortly after five in the afternoon and the hail, which came to exceed the size of golf balls in some points such as Derramadores, devastated the apricot, peach, Paraguayan, plum and other plantations crops.
The losses are very large and, although we will have to wait for more precise estimates, it could affect many millions of kilos, since harvesting in some areas had not yet begun. These losses are added to those suffered by the persistent rains, which considerably reduced the production of one of the apricot varieties, bulida, which is still very abundant in the area.
In some places in the Northwest, such as Casas de Navarro in Caravaqueño, 4 km from Archivel towards Campo de San Juan, 55 liters accumulated in one hour.
Esteban Fernández, from Barranda, commented this Wednesday that “this storm has been the last straw; It is a real disaster, our fight against frost helped to save almost 90% of the harvest and we hoped to achieve a super harvest to make up for the previous one, which was a disaster, but what has fallen throws all our forecasts to the ground ; there’s nothing left.” The forecasts indicated that this season some 40,000 kilos per hectare could be harvested; while last year it fluctuated between 16,000 and 18,000 kilos.
Juan Pedro Martínez, from Frutas Caravaca, which brings together the majority of farmers in the municipality, was also very affected. «It is true that here more than 80% of the harvest had already been lost due to the rains, but this has been a disaster; the little bulida that had been saved was almost harvested, but the rest of the varieties and other crops have been completely lost.
#waterspout #overflows #rivers #floods #streets #ruins #crops #Northwest #Region #Murcia