Eastern Spain turns orange: 'Most intense Sahara rain' in three years, and why it's good news
Tuesday, February 9, 2021 @ 2:20 PM
IF YOU'RE in the eastern coastal provinces of Spain at the moment, you may have stepped outside on Saturday and found the landscape had turned orange – a film of clay-coloured dust that looked as though they'd been cutting terracotta tiles in heaven.
Desert sand on mountain snow in Benasque, Huesca province, Aragón (photo: AEMET on Twitter)
And even though it's messy, it's actually a good thing and helpful to the atmosphere, reveals the State meteorological agency, AEMET.
'Sahara rain' always creates extra work for Mediterranean residents, what with sweeping their terraces and cleaning their cars and windows, and according to head of Alicante University's Faculty of Climatology, Dr Jorge Olcina, the 'sandstorm' seen in the early hours of Saturday morning is the 'most intense' since June 2018.
It happens when an atmospheric front 'drags' sand floating above the surface from the Sahara desert, caught up by a south or south-westerly wind, and normally comes during unsettled conditions – not necessarily gales or storms as we know them, but in a typical 'heat-meets-cold' or 'humid-meets-polar' air clash.
Dr Olcina, who is also chairman of the Spanish Geographers' Association (AGE), says for the 'orange effect' to occur, the rain combined with the desert sand in suspension has to be very fine and very light – of the type where people barely notice it and hold out their hands to feel for drops, with a puzzled expression on their faces; even 'Scotch mist'-type rain would be too heavy for it to happen.
This is because the water needs to evaporate quickly to leave the solid residue, or sand, behind, if Mother Nature is aiming to create a 'Martian look'.
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