Translated from eldiario.es with the help of DeepL:
"The storm that has hit the Levant these last three days has illustrated the new climatic normality that Spain is facing: extreme phenomena recorded in unexpected times. The Gloria storm has left at least ten dead, record waves, hurricane winds, marine invasion and destruction on the coast. The climate crisis decreed by the government this Tuesday seems, in this scenario, more justified.
This squall reveals that we are still heading down an unexplored path of climate change. An isolated depression (DANA) formed over the Mediterranean at a historically unfavourable time of year has coincided with an anticyclone unprecedented in more than half a century in the British Isles. The result has been glory.
The new climate parameters have several components. The oscillation of the Jet Stream (the fast and narrow air flow that circulates in the upper layers of the atmosphere) becomes more intense, resulting in this type of isolated low pressure in our environment even in unfavorable times.
The arrival of cold air masses to the western Mediterranean is frequent in the months of January and February. They usually result in intense invasions of very cold air of polar or Siberian origin as an effect of the retrograde movement of air from the interior of the European continent to the Iberian Peninsula; that is, contrary to the normal circulation of the atmosphere.
What is not so frequent is that these air masses are isolated in our environment at this time of the year and acquire the explosive and erratic behavior typical of the DANAs, and much less that they end up in a storm of east as intense as the one we have suffered. All this, although rare, is not something that has not happened before.
But Gloria has gathered more exceptional things. The key ingredient to understand what happened was about 1,500 kilometers north of the peninsula. In Britain, there was an unusual atmospheric stability. So unusual that it hadn't been recorded for 63 years.
On the evening of January 19th, the British weather service announced on Twitter a historical record of pressure in West Wales. The barometer located at Mubles Head reached 1050.5 hPa, a record not seen since 1957. The powerful anticyclone ensured stability on the Islands.
So, with Gloria in the Levant and the extraordinary anticyclone in the British South, the conditions were created for the wind coming from the North East to acquire almost hurricane force. From then on, all records began to be beaten by one of the worst adverse weather phenomena on record.
Impacts of the storm
The eastern slopes of the Balearic Islands, as well as the entire Valencian and Catalan coastline, have suffered the worst effects of the Gloria storm. The extremely strong eastern storm has caused wind gusts of over 110 km/h and sustained winds of over 100 km/h. It was a hurricane force on a Mediterranean area not used to strong waves, which literally swallowed up a large part of the eastern coast of the peninsula.
The records have been historic. The Valencia buoy has measured waves of 8.44 meters high, the highest level ever recorded by Puertos del Estado on the peninsula's Mediterranean coast. The Mediterranean has literally demanded the property deeds in its natural domains. At points in Mallorca and Girona, the waves have reached double the height of entire four-storey blocks and have flooded the streets of towns such as Tossa de Mar with sea foam.
In addition, in the Ebro delta, the force of the wind pushed the waves inland from the river system of deposits that the Ebro has at its mouth. An environmental disaster pending assessment in one of the most threatened areas of the Iberian Peninsula in the face of the scenarios posed by Climate Change due to the delicate ecological balance it maintains.
The destructive storms on the coasts are increasing. Wind speeds and wave heights have been increasing for three decades, according to research published in the journal Science in April last year. This, coupled with the effects of climate change predict that episodes like Gloria, the storm that ripped out balconies in Tenerife in November 2018, which forced the closure of the promenade of A Coruña a year ago or hit the Andalusian coast in March 2019 will be repeated more frequently, explained the researchers then. A new normality marked by the alteration of the climate. "
