Gecko Towers:
March 5th 2025 – We are told that we may well be in for a prolonged spell of wet weather. Warnings – including the Yellows from the Spanish Agency AEMET – are given and the prediction services say the rain will be with us for at least a week.
Thunder, lightning and sheet/driving rain have been our regular visitor for the best part of a week and it shows limited signs of stopping. Storm Jana, an Atlantic air mass, has been the courier of some of the worst weather conditions seen on the Costa del Sol in recent years. Flooding, land slips, fallen trees and submerged cars punctuate the region with local folk sharing the unfolding drams on social media. Strong winds are associated with this weather front which whip up further chaos particualrly delivering property damage and causing flights to Malaga Airport to divert.
Is March becoming the new “bad month” on the Costa del Sol? It certainly was for those who had planned a holiday including the English school’s Half-Termers and the local celebrants of White Week – the only mid-term break in the usual Andalucían scholastic year.
We have been lashed by wave after wave of monsoon style stair rods. Trees have been uprooted one injuring an elderly Marbella resident. The infrastructure has taken a bashing with rock falls on the Ronda Road that connects San Pedro de Alcantara to the picturesque home of Goyaesque matadors, putting the route out of action for some weeks to come.
For the first time in a week, 12th March, saw the brief return of that absentee after which the Coast is named, the Sun. However, later in the afternoon saw a resumption of a squall where something akin to the UK’s April Showers delivered yet more water.
The quantity of water that has fallen has been relentless. Our gardens have been irrigated, crops have received an excess of seasonal dousing and the sea and rivers have turned brown with the deluge of escaping water. Good invariably follows the bad. This has been manifest in the simple quantity of water that has boosted the already plentiful supply seen in some of the local reservoirs.
Saturday 8th March saw up to 60 mm of rain during the course of the day with 20mm falling in an hour! On 10th March in a twelve hour period the regions reservoirs saw a combined total of 240m litres up from 237m litres on the 9th of March!!! We haven’t yet topped the 366m litre height of March 2021 but it hasn’t stopped raining yet.
Those reservoirs that supply the city of Malaga and are located in the Axarquia, that received pitiful quantities prior to this last week, are now showing a 20-30% capacity, doubling the quantities held in March last year.
Closer to home, the team managing the La Concepcion Reservoir in Marbella (Istan), who were faced with a wall of water, were required to open the dams to release the pressure – in a controlled manner to avoid further downstream flooding – allowing some 60m3 per second to escape into the local river system and eventually to the sea. Apparently, there is a critical point in the civil engineering of a dam’s structure where you are compelled to release excess water as the capacity approaches 86%.
The miserable sight of the “waste” of such a valuable natural resource needs proper analysis and, as it appears to be a seemingly regular occurrence, the infrastructure needs to be considered that can achieve two things. The water needs to be conserved in a controlled environment for later use. Additionally, what is preventing investment in a pipeline to direct water away from areas of minimal need towards areas, like Malaga City, where the resource is more regularly stretched?
The swollen rivers have become the new celebrities of social media with fast flowing water gliding quickly consuming river banks and top soil. Cars have been washed into bridges and rescues have been dramatic. It never ceases to amaze me just how resourceful the emergency service in Andalucia are. Their selflessness and diligence are over whelming. Their valor is unimpeachable.
By Day 9 of the supposed weeklong rain fest, we are told that Storm Konrad (the best they could come up with following the alphabetical naming of storms) is coming. Announcing its arrival in the early hours of 13th March with a spectacular thunder and lightning display combined with gusting winds and rough seas, heralding probably the hardest driving rain of the last few days predicted to be around 60mm in twelve hours.
As I start to Google plans for a new Ark, the pool has again been set to “waste” and tearfully thousands of litres of recently fallen water are whisked down the drain and sent into our recently installed drainage system.
I know you are keen to understand the mathematical impact of all this “weather” on our precious water resources. Well, on 6th March the Embalse de la Concepcion sat at capacity of 79.23% (45.59 hm3) . By Friday 7th this had risen to 81.61%. By Monday 10th we were up to 82.39% or 47.41 hm3. So we are currently up 6 Hm3 (6,000,000,000 litres) in a week and nearly 40 hm3 higher than the same reading on 10th March 2024! And that is a massive 40,000.000.000 litres.
I suspect we are all set for the summer but it seems to not yet be all over. We are predicted to see further falls on and off over the next week or so.
Stay subscribed for further updates – and if you are already here stay dry!
Featured image ©️ Chris Armes 2024
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