Snow in April
All sorts of weather on view during typical spring weekend
ALICANTE province saw it all at the weekend – warm sunshine, electrical storms, cloudbursts, and snow showers with intense cold around the mountain summits.
A low pressure system brought changeable spring weather to the south-east of Spain.
On Friday evening the temperature plummeted in the mountains of the north of the province as a storm moved in bringing thunder, lightning and snow to Alicante’s highest mountain Aitana (1,558 metres), which towers over the Guadalest Valley.
Our photo (top right) was taken at around 1,350 metres, at the Font de Forata natural spring, just below the summit as the thunder crashed and high winds blew the snow horizontally during the strongest gusts.
The unsettled pictured continued on Saturday as storms moved across Alicante province from west to east.
Spectacular cloud formations brought lighting, hail and heavy bursts of rain to many municipalities, with two different storms hitting the south Costa Blanca area during the afternoon.
Residents reported large hail stones falling in Ciudad Quesada, Rojales, with some readers posting photographs on the Costa Blanca News Facebook page.
Janice Walker noted that they had just had ‘the second storm of the afternoon in Quesada, the last one with hail’, but the ‘sun is out again now’.
June-Anne Whitlock commented on an ‘amazing storm here in Guardamar’ with hail ‘the size of ice cubes’.
At the opposite end of the Costa, Andrea Bassindale noted that ‘we had thunder, rain and hail here in Oliva’ which is just across the border in Valencia province.
It was around 17.00 that the heavens opened in north Alicante province with heavy rain, howling winds, thunder cracks – and large hailstones.
Temperatures had just dipped into single figures, and a liberal icy pebble-dash carpeted the main road through Ondara, the Vall de Gallinera, El Verger, and inland rural areas.
Oliva (La Safor) was less Christmassy, but roof terraces were generously scattered with white.
The Oliva-Pego road was iced over, and drivers had to slow nearly to a crawl.
No damage was reported, and a rainy start to Sunday eventually gave way to bright sunshine by Monday morning.
Weekend forecast
State weather agency AEMET is predicting a more settled outlook for the weekend, with a very warm Sunday in store for the south of the province before temperatures fall again.
For Torrevieja they are forecasting highs of 20°C for tomorrow (Saturday), 25°C for Sunday and 19°C on Monday with a low probability of rain.
For Benidorm they have 18°C, 19°C and 17°C respectively on the same days, also with a low probability of precipitation.