La squall Barbara It was the second named storm of the 2020-2021 season. The name was proposed by the Spanish state meteorological agency (AEMET) on Sunday, October 18 at 09:30 a.m. Its origin is due to the issuance of several orange-level wind gust warnings valid for the 20th, starting at 16:00 p.m. Although it had not yet been generated at the time of its naming, it began to form in the final hours of Monday.
In this article we are going to tell you everything you need to know about the storm Barbara, what was the amount of precipitation it left, the gusts of wind, etc.
Squall Barbara
During the 20th and early hours of the 21st, storm Barbara crossed the Peninsula from southwest to northeast, leaving a large amount of rainfall, especially in the western half of the Central system, and very strong wind gusts, even hurricane-force, in the mountainous areas of the north. It was found that at the southern end of a broad squall that encompassed much of the North Atlantic Ocean The humid subtropical flow was being fed. This is where a secondary vortex formed, which, upon interacting with a high-level polar jet stream, gave rise to the storm Barbara.
At 00:20 UTC on October 12, the center of Barbara was located slightly west of Madeira. During the following day, it moved rapidly northwestward. By 00:21 UTC, it was over Lisbon, and at XNUMX:XNUMX UTC on October XNUMX, it was over the Cantabrian Sea. Normally, the center of a storm will have lower atmospheric pressure. In this case, although the pressure at the center was not very low, around 990 hPa, It was at its deepest point. The strong pressure gradient that served as its passage through the peninsula, following a center, and the high pressures found in Europe and the Mediterranean were what generated the strong winds with large gusts.
Wind gusts and precipitation
The gusts of strong winds were even hurricanes in a band that ranged from Huelva to the central Pyrenees. All the fronts associated with the storm Barbara crossed the entire peninsula in a southwest to northwest direction. He had a slow move east. Thus, there was a continuous and intense flow from the southwest which favored an accumulation of large amounts of precipitation. The southern slopes of the western peninsular mountain systems are where there was the greatest amount of rainfall. The maximum occurred in the Central system. Due to the high rainfall, up to 300 mm in just 24 hours. In the Mediterranean area, the Balearic Islands, rainfall was practically zero.
The extreme edge of the cold front reached all of the Canary Islands during the afternoon of October 20th. Significant rainfall also fell in the Canary Islands, although much lower than that recorded on the mainland. Throughout the 21st, Barbara continued moving rapidly northward, merging with the main center of the large Atlantic storm between Great Britain and the North Sea that afternoon, before moving toward Scandinavia. Although low pressure, precipitation, and winds, although less intense, continued over mainland Spain, It can be said that the effects directly associated with Barbara ceased during the early hours of the 21st.
Rainfall in the western part of the central system was particularly intense and long-lasting. Considering the usual 7- to 7-hour weather interval, the 301 mm recorded in Puerto El Pico (Ávila) stands out, out of the 20 or 312 mm, which is the highest in the series of seasons. Garganta la Olla, Hervás, Piornal, Madrigal de la Vera, Hoyos, Tornavacas, and Valverde del Fresno in Cáceres not only broke the record for maximum accumulated precipitation in October for a month, but also almost all of them.
The all-time record doubled. In addition, there were torrential showers, such as 21 liters in just 10 minutes in El Paso (La Palma), 12 in Alosno (Huelva) and 11 in Fuente de Cantos (Badajoz).
Warnings and alerts of the storm Barbara
An orange warning was issued for gusts with wind speeds exceeding 90 or 110 km/h. Depending on the region, the period of validity of the storm was between October 20 and 21. It covered almost all the mountainous areas of the northern half of the peninsula, including the Sierra de Toledo. The entire central system, Sierra de Tabria, the Iberian system of Burgos, Soria and La Rioja, the western and central Pyrenees, the center of Navarra and the Cantabrian slope, and the entire Basque Country (except the coast).
The central systems of Salamanca, Cáceres, Ávila, Segovia and Madrid, as well as the Cantabrian Mountains of León, Zamora and Palencia and most of them, in 12 hours accumulated rainfall greater than 80 mm. An orange alert level was also issued in Huelva, and an hourly precipitation advisory of more than 30mm was also issued.
The wind was one of the protagonists of the storm. There were strong gusts in almost the entire territory, which stood out in the west and north. These areas had an orange warning level of over 100 km/h. The strongest gusts occurred in the high mountains, with wind speeds exceeding 120 km/h on Tuesday night.
The first rain associated with this low pressure system had already appeared in the northwest at the end of this Monday. Galicia, the westernmost point of Castilla y León, and the mountainous areas of Asturias and Extremadura will be areas where the rains will arrive earlier. In the gray sky and the days of heavy rain, the drop in temperature and the wind created an even more unpleasant environment.
As you can see, Storm Barbara is one of those that, with little notice, has broken important records. I hope that with this information you can learn more about this storm. storm and its characteristics.