Borrasca Gloria
We have gotten very used to Barcelona's mild winter weather. Henry is committed to wearing shorts for the whole winter. Meanwhile the locals can often be found wearing bulky scarves, puffy coats and boots when it's in the high 50s. Their commitment to dressing warmly may be in part to facilitate dining outside, which is done all winter. I suspect this is largely to enable smoking, which is still very prevalent here, through thankfully not allowed inside. This photo perfectly captures the devotion to dining alfresco:
But this week the storm Gloria blew into town. Coming from New England, I didn't realize that a 'red' weather alert is rare, but apparently it is quite unusual. According to news reports the storm (a "hybrid cyclone") was the worst of its kind since 1982.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51189589 https://www.eumetsat.int/website/home/Images/ImageLibrary/DAT_4825053.html
The flipside to having wonderful view is that our house is very exposed, on the side of a hill. The wind was pretty intense, throwing patio furniture around and causing most of the windows on the exposed side of the house (and our roof) to leak. I wanted to take a few photos from the roof terrace, but decided it was windy enough I didn't want to step beyond the threshold.
Sagrada Familia is little more than a shadow against the gray sky:
Barcelona was not the hardest hit area - Valencia and the Balearic islands took the brunt of it. The largest wave ever recorded in the Mediterranean struck Valencia (8.44m/27.69ft). Some parts of spain had freakish snowfall.
Meanwhile, Henry was in Boi Taull, in the small purple area of the map below (quite distant from the coast), which got snow but also high winds that caused lift closures and kept his class off the ski trails.
Many trees were down in Barcelona. The grounds crew in Parc del Guinardo has their work cut out for them. Erosion is an ongoing problem in this hilltop park - the paths wash out in any significant rainstorm. The runnels created by Gloria were dramatic.
Sadly, these 2 arbor vitae in Parc del Guinardo' went down:
At the convention center (Fira de Barcelona), whole rows of them fell like dominoes.
