On October 29, 2024, a period of intense rainfall inundated Valencia province in eastern Spain.
On October 29, 2024, a period of intense rainfall inundated Valencia province in eastern Spain. The extensive, deadly flooding destroyed infrastructure and spurred massive search and rescue efforts.
The downpours kept coming as a high-altitude, low-pressure weather system remained parked over the region. These systems, known as cut-off lows or locally by the Spanish acronym DANA, develop when cold fronts encounter warm, humid air masses and become isolated from the jet stream. In the days following the Valencia flash floods, rain continued to fall in Spain’s eastern coastal regions as well as its southwest, causing yet more flooding and disrupting transportation, classes, and other activities.
This map shows rainfall accumulation totals from October 29 through November 4, 2024. These data are remotely sensed estimates that come from IMERG (the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for GPM), a product of the GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) mission, and may differ from ground-based measurements. For instance, IMERG data are averaged across each pixel, meaning that rain-gauge measurements within a given pixel can be significantly higher or lower than the average.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using IMERG data from the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) at NASA/GSFC.
