Cold drop and DANA are synonymous terms, but the first was replaced by the second for its association with “the great storms of the eighties [del siglo XX] that left fatalities and great material damage” and “generated alarm every time a meteorologist spoke of cold weather“.
This was explained to EFE by the spokesperson for the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) Rubén del Campo, who specified that this meteorological phenomenon “does not always cause torrential rains“, but it has multiple effects and can generate “things as diverse as heat waves, the arrival of suspended dust from Africa or lighter rains.”
The DANA, “basically is a pocket of cold air in the upper layers of the atmosphere that is isolated from the general atmospheric circulation, surrounded on all its sides by warmer air,” says Del Campo, and it is the meeting between the winds that circulate around it with the cold character of its core, which can generate strong storms.
The difference between a DANA and a stormHe adds, “it is a very technical question” but it could be summarized in that “the storm is a low pressure system that is identified at all levels of the troposphere, from the surface to high levels, and usually has associated fronts.” , while DANA “does not usually have this reflection of low surface pressures because, as its name indicates, it is an isolated depression at high levels.”
Thus, the passage of a storm “although sometimes it includes an intense storm” usually discharges softer precipitationover more areas and for a longer time, while DANA lacks associated fronts and what it does is cause “high intensity storms with torrential rains in not very extensive areas.”
This is what makes it a more violent phenomenon,”unfortunately harder to predict“and, therefore, dangerous as it is capable of leaving large quantities of water on smaller surfaces.
Floodable area in Spain
Since last October 29, Spain has suffered the passage of a DANA that has claimed more than 219 dead in the east and south of the country, while the search for missing people continues in the flooded areas.
According to data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, it is estimated that currently in Spain About 2.7 million people live in floodplains473,000 of them in areas that flood on average once every 10 years.
In addition to its definition as an acronym, the name DANA is “a play on words, a tribute to Francisco García Danaa meteorologist very knowledgeable about the effects of cold drops” and companion of the one known as “weatherman” at the time, Manuel Mariano Medina, the most popular meteorologist of a time when only the two Spanish Television channels existed.
Doctor in Physical Sciences, García Dana joined as Meteorology assistant in 1950 and his first assignment was in Villa Cisneros, in the Spanish Sahara (today, Western Sahara); in 1979 he obtained through a merit contest the head of the Prediction Center from the then National Institute of Meteorology.
His death, at the age of 60 in June 1984, motivated his colleagues to create a term that would allow defining the atmospheric phenomenon keeping his memory in the process.
#cold #drop #officially #renamed #DANA #separate #alarm #generated #storms
