By admin 
WHAT WENT WRONG IN SPAIN?
We won’t know exactly what went wrong in Spain unless there is an inquest, but this is not the first time that warnings and responses to flooding have been lacking in Europe.
In July 2021, flash floods in Germany killed 189 people. An analysis of the flood warning system found that it had serious shortcomings. Survey data shows that many residents received no warning or underestimated the extent of the flood, while up to 50 percent of those who were warned did not. know what steps to take to protect themselves and their property.
As the report says, warnings are only useful if people in flood-prone areas and civil protection agencies “receive and notice the warning in time, trust the warning, understand its content and know how to respond and behave appropriately.” That was not the case in Germany; the shortcomings were clearly repeated in Spain.
Providing effective forecasts and warnings can be challenging. Although weather models are reasonably accurate today, it remains extremely difficult to predict exactly where thunderstorms will strike and whether the rain will translate into flash flooding, as this depends on many local variables such as topography, infrastructure and surfaces.
It is made even more difficult by the fact that we are seeing more rare events due to climate change. It is difficult to predict the impact of a year’s rainfall in just eight hours, which has never been observed before. This applies to both forecasters and the public.