Madrid Closes Parks As First Storms Of Winter Lash Spain
The first winter storms have arrived this week with plummeting temperatures, high winds, rain and snow lashing the peninsula.
Madrid’s City Council issued a yellow alert and will be closing all public parks today, Friday 25th November, as high winds are expected to hit the capital during the day.#
The storms bringing cold weather and even snow on high ground even covered the city of Elche in the province of Alicante in ice and huge hailstones on Wednesday.
Many local residents were awakened by the noise of the hailstones falling on the city in the early hours of the morning and got out of bed to see the slush on their windows and streets filled with water.
According to reports, the hailstorm was accompanied by a waterspout that left 40 litres of water per square meter in the streets in just half an hour.
Teodoro Hernandez Leyva, who filmed a flooded roundabout from his apartment window, told Newsflash: “The video was filmed in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
“The forecasts said there would be heavy rain and lightning, but hailstones and so much water were not expected.
“There was normal rainfall the day before. I filmed the images from my balcony close to the centre of Alicante next to the main train station.
“In this area, it is normal to see this type of phenomena. I was awake because I was worried about the situation and thought the building garage might get flooded as has happened in previous years.
“A few years ago we also experienced a similar situation but during the day.”
Other images of the devastation caused by the hailstones include orange groves packed with oranges surrounded by several inches of hailstones scattered over the ground.
As well as the video of the river of white stones washing down the road and circulating on a roundabout, police also issued a video of a patrol car attempting to make its way down a hailstone packed street.
Eventually the height of the hailstones forced the car to stop, and the policeman is seen climbing out and attempting to trudge through the thick coverage to make it down the street.
They shared the video together with a message saying: “We woke up after a busy morning to see this and were forced to issue an orange caution warning on certain roads due to the possibility of patches of black ice and accidents.”
