ARCHIVED - Two dead as Storm Gloria brings extreme weather to eastern Spain

Towns isolated by heavy snow in Alicante and Albacete as 8-metre waves batter the coast of Valencia

As Storm Gloria reaches the Region of Murcia and brings snow, heavy rain and strong winds to the Costa Cálida it is worth remembering that in fact Murcia has escaped the worst of the weather, with even more extreme conditions affecting other parts of the country including the neighbouring province of Alicante.

The deaths of two people in Spain can be attributed to Gloria, one of them a man in Asturias who was killed when a vehicle hit him as he was putting snow chains onto his own car and the other a homeless woman of Rumanian origin, aged 54, who was found dead in a park in Gandía (in the province of Valencia). It is believed she died of hypothermia sleeping in the park overnight, having refused the offer of a bed and a roof over her head.

Red alerts for snow, rough seas and winds close to hurricane force are still in place in Valencia, Teruel, Castellón and along the coast of Catalunya, and only a slight improvement is expected on Tuesday before the storm truly begins to die out on Wednesday. In many parts of the country, especially in the east, record snowfalls are expected, according to the State meteorological agency Aemet.

By midday on Monday the lowest temperature recorded was -11.3 degrees in the Pyrenees, the strongest gust of wind had been recorded at 121 km/h in A Coruña in the far north-west of Spain (although San Javier in Murcia was not far behind with a gust of 104 km/h at 3.20 in the morning) and the wettest place was Alcoy in Alicante with just under 100 millimetres. But perhaps the most eye-catching data concerned the height of waves along the Mediterranean coast, where new records of over 6 metres were set in Valencia on Sunday and then exceeded by far on Monday morning with a reading of 8.44 metres.

Even more extreme, though, was a wave of an incredible 14.22 metres at the buoy of Dragonera off the coast of Ibiza!

The image above shows the seafront under water in Gandía.

Meanwhile, the town of Villena in the north-west of the province of Alicante was completely isolated by heavy snow as of 7.00 on Monday morning and nearby in Almansa the situation was not much better – both of these towns are only a short drive from Yecla in the north of Murcia!

Images: Meteo Hellín (Almansa in the snow), AVAMET (the seafront in Gandía) (Twitter)

Join the Murcia Weather Watch group on Facebook to keep up to date with all the latest forecasts and weather-related stories: https://www.facebook.com/groups/RegionOfMurciaWeatherWatch/.