Warning !!!! Valencia area 18/19/20 Oct. (1 Viewer)

[hogan]

Hi there
To any one touring Spain at the moment and heading towards the Valencia/Alicante area.We are having very bad thunder storms and many roads are flooded with roads and a bridge washed away.I would suggest staying away from this area until around 20 Oct when the forecast is better...

 

[BGD]

Update -

We live about 10 kms north, and 5kms inland from the Benidorm area.

Still having heavy showers, but the torrential rainstorms and floods are (hopefully) over now.
The torrential storms and massive downpours that we get here sometimes at this time of year are called "Gota Frias" - caused by warm wet air coming off the sea and hitting the now colder land air as it is forced up the mountain sides inland. They only occur every few years, but when they do, the amount of rain they drop is MASSIVE!!!

All main roads are open, and the main North-South through-roads (the AP7 motorway and the N332 "A-road" that runs alongside the motorway) are fine.
With the exception of a couple of inland small roads up in the hills, all other roads are also fine now.

The flooding last weekend hit the lower end of the town of Calpe very badly - cars washed away, shops and bars flooded, and part of the seafront has been washed away.
For those of you who know the town, they always get it badly, because it's on a hill running down to the sea, and the water running off the mountains behind it all comes down through the town.
The "dry river beds" that are designed to take this floodwater simply couldn't cope, and so they overflowed onto and through the streets.

So, it's fine to pass through this coastal area of the Costa Blanca in Spain now - but the forecast is for further showery periods for the next few days, so not much sunbathing potential just at the moment.