This week looks very unsettled with periods of rain sometimes heavy, and the possibility of thunderstorms though the week.
This is how the weather is looking on the IPMA website for Funchal.
Madeira / Monday 24th
Forecast of rain periods from the morning due to the action of a front associated with a depression that will form from the NW of Madeira, which, in some periods, may be of some intensity and will be more located on the South Coast / SW and West and respective mountainous slopes.
The IPMA predicts the possibility of thunderstorms later today also.⚡️⛈️
Some storm information.
ANOTHER STORM NAMED: “BEATRICE”
This storm has been affecting Portugal for the last few days causing a lots of problems especially flooding.
Why do we name storms?
▶️ The meteorology institutes of Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, decided to form what is called the “Southwest Group”, to assign names to the storms, the name being assigned by the country that is first severely affected. Currently, the ONLY criterion for nomination is wind over 91km/h, and this storm was named by Spain because that’s where the winds will be over 91km/h. Orange or red warning in terms of precipitation or swell are no longer criteria for nomination.
▶️Notice that there are no names starting with Q, U, X, Y and Z and this is because there are few names starting with these letters. Another curiosity is that if a storm is extremely destructive, the name will not be used again. Likewise, if we are affected by a storm that has already been named by the American Hurricane Center (NHC-NOOA), or named by the “West Group”, consisting of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the original name will be kept.
▶️Why name storms? It has been found that when a storm has a name, people are much more attentive to the news than when talking about just “storm” and also because it is easier to talk about previous storms using names instead of dates.
▶️ However, the single use of the wind criterion for naming storms means that storms without strong winds but with great intensity of rain, snow, etc, end up being “ignored” and are only with warnings. In fact, we often have comments that “in the old days” storms like “Armand” or what Beatrice will be like wouldn’t even be called “storm”!
▶️Well… now all we can do is hope and hope that this list of names remains unused as much as possible… but that, even without named storms, the usual autumn and winter rains replace all the water we’re missing!
All updates on the weeks weather will be posted on my blog. Wednesday Thursday look the worse days of the week which may need some checking in on for any warnings.