Well, we are not in Andalucia and a long way from the coast, however this is how the newspaper Sur in English (www.surinenglish.com) described the much needed rain on the south coast…
Downpours bring drought relief to the western coast
La Concepción reservoir in Marbella is now at 70 per cent of its capacity
Just when the first sunbathers of the year were getting out their bathing suits, the skies above the Costa del Sol opened and the rain returned. Last Saturday there were downpours all over the province of Malaga – and they continued on and off for several days – but the worst hit area was the western coast. In the city of Malaga, on the first day of rain, 70 litres a square metre were measured, while the heaviest rainfall along the coast was recorded in Marbella, with 66 litres, followed by Fuengirola with 41 and Estepona with 40. Inland, however, rainfall was lighter, with barely 24 litres in Ronda and 16 in Antequera. On the eastern Costa del Sol ran was less intense too; the figure for Torrox, for instance, was 12 litres.
The rain caused flooding on the coastal railway line, which was cut off between Benalmádena and El Pinillo Station from 1 p.m. on Saturday. Three trains were at a standstill for over an hour. The railway company, Renfe, tried to put on buses to carry passengers to their destinations but the roads were in a similar situation to the railway track and, by the time the buses arrived to pick up the passengers, about 2.15 p.m., the line was open again.
Power cuts
Power cuts were also the order of the day, although only at specific spots. However restoring the service took some time because of the difficulty of travelling from one place to another and the number of streets that were completely impassable due to flooding.
But there was good news too: the heavy rain relieved the drought of the last year. The chairman of the Mediterranean- Andalusian Water Board, Antonio Rodríguez Leal, described the volume of water entering Costa del Sol reservoirs as “magnificent”, especially for the Concepción reservoir in Marbella, which now stands at 70 per cent of its capacity. In contrast to the 200,000 litres that had fallen in La Concepción in recent weeks, the figure rose to 100,000 litres an hour last Saturday. Rodríguez stressed that this would go a long way towards alleviating drought from Manilva to Torremolinos. The situation in the city of Malaga, which depends on the Guadalhorce, Conde de Guadalhorce and Guadalteba reservoirs, is less encouraging. Despite the rain, the Guadalhorce holds contains 60 cubic hectometres less than it did a year ago.