Random Views: The rain in Spain again

Sunday 15 May 2022

The rain in Spain again

It’s been a weird spring, here in the Valencia.

The region of Valencia is fertile and often surprisingly green. It’s only really in the height of summer that things start to turn yellow. But greenness and soil fertility come at a price.

It reminds me of what a friend from the English Lake District once said to me. He found it funny when visitors complained about the rain.

“It’s the Lake District,” he would reply, “and it’s full of lakes. What do you think they’re full of? And where do you think it comes from?”

In Valencia, we tend to have two periods of serious rain a year, in about November and about March. It can be as little as a week, it can sometimes be as long as three. It isn’t generally longer.

Well, last November we didn’t get the heavy rain. When I say ‘heavy’, I mean heavy. It comes down in huge floods, so that if you go out without a raincoat, you’re soaked in seconds, and even if you go out with one, it only takes ten minutes for the water to seep under your protective garments. Then imagine that going on for hours and hours, and the same thing happening every day or two, for a couple of weeks.

Well, it didn’t happen in November. So we started the year with our hydrographers frankly worried. Reservoirs were down to 30%. Things were close to critical.

Then came March. And it was followed by April. They were the rainiest since records began. On and on for week after week. I’m told that, officially, we had 27 days of rain in the two months. That’s practically every other day. You can probably guess that with heavy rain every other day, it actually feels as though it never stops, and there isn’t a dry day ever.

It even extended into May. On Tuesday 3 May, over 232 litres of water fell per square metre in a single 24-hour period. The paper where I read that startling fact, quoted a local saying, “that’s a lot of water”, which sounds about right to me, if not particularly insightful.

Well, the reservoirs are full now. Why, they’ve even had to release water into the Albufera, the huge freshwater lake south of Valencia, where the great rice-growing areas are. That’s a boon because the lake has been appreciably shrinking for the last few years.

But you can have too much of a good thing. And while I’m happy the weather decided to make up for its failure to deliver water in November, I can’t help feeling it slightly overcompensated for its initial negligence. By the beginning of May, everyone was beginning to feel a bit fed up with it all. Hell, we were feeling that way by the middle of April.

In low-lying areas, the effects were disastrous. Buildings damaged, cars washed away, roads and railways closed. Basically, quite dramatic conditions.

Where we live is a little higher up. I mean, I’m not claiming it’s mountainous or anything. We’re at about 100 metres above sea level. But that’s been enough, so far, to protect us reasonably well from flooding. How long it'll last I don’t know, of course. I realise there are still climate change deniers out there, but if our experience of this spring is anything to go by, they’re looking increasingly unconvincing with every day that passes.

One of the best resources of our neighbourhood is the woodland nearby, where I go walking with the dogs most days. It’s typical Mediterranean countryside: lots of pines, scrubby grass, plenty of sand. But there’s a distinct and general lack of water features. Streams? No. Lakes? I’m told there’s one but I’ve yet to find it. Waterfalls? Don’t make me laugh.

So one of the more exciting sides of the rain this year was the sudden appearance of lakes and rivers in the woods.

Toffee inspects with scepticism our newly-minted mighty cataracts

Now, mind, I’m using the words ‘lakes’ and ‘rivers’ in rather a personal sense. I appreciate most people might prefer ‘streams’ and ‘ponds’. Or even ‘rivulets’ and ‘puddles’. But I like to take a more romantic view.