A man died yesterday in one of the many incidents caused by Storm Ingrid which has now swept through national territory – albeit there is a lot more bad weather to follow.
With almost half the country ‘visited by snow’ thanks to Ingrid (including parts of the Alentejo that rarely see snow), yesterday’s fatality happened when the car the man was driving was swept up by floodwaters in Pêro Moniz, Cadaval, in the district of Lisbon (see update below).
Weather warnings in a number of districts remain in place – and ‘high seas’ are expected for the next few days.
People are being told to ‘keep away from the shoreline’ if they are anywhere near the sea, in the hope that further tragedies can be avoided.
But with the worst of Ingrid now behind us (authorities ‘balance’ is of roughly 1,550 incidents, mainly falling trees and structures, two dozen homes ‘rendered uninhabitable’ and, beyond the fatality, one person injured), there is to be no let up in the miserable, wet weather.
A quick consultation of online weather forecasts will see that rain is expected until February 8 (there is no forecast available yet for February 9).
Ten districts (including the Algarve) are currently on orange alert for sea agitation and rain. This is expected to pass to yellow ‘in some days’, but the country is a long way from any lengthy periods of sunshine.
Meteorologist Mário Marques has been telling SIC that the next week (at least) will see “persistent rain” throughout national territory. Temperatures will oscillate – and one bonus is that there is not expected to be any kind of ‘cold snap’. In fact, there is no snap in sight at all: it is all super-soggy for quite some days to come.
In ‘meteorological language’(supplied by Mário Marques) “the rainy weather pattern we are experiencing I think could last at least until February 5 or 6 (The Weather Channel predicts February 8) (…) as I do not see the Azores anticyclone in a position that would allow it to divert all the cyclogenesis associated with the jet stream coming out of the United States and is at a more southerly latitude, projecting the depressions associated with the frontal systems towards Western Europe and, in particular, towards our latitude.”
Meantime, the Azores is bracing for ‘Depression Joseph’ – which is due to start affecting islands in the archipelago from tonight, with winds gusting at as much as 110 m/ hour – and civil protection has been warning people living around the riverside area of Porto to prepare (and take preventative measures) against the possibility of flooding around times of high tide.
UPDATE: Correio da Manhã supplies the sad details of this death. The victim – 31-year-old Cristiano Caçador – was driving an ‘all-terrain vehicle’. He was accompanied by two others who managed to exit the vehicle and sound the alert. This was called into authorities at 3.43am.
According to Cadaval fire station chief David Santos, the “vehicle had tried to cross floodwaters on a farm road (…) We don’t understand why as all the rivers in the area have burst their banks”.
CM adds that while the two occupants of the vehicle had a lucky escape, Cristiano Caçador “entered into cardiac arrest”.
Source: SIC/ Euronews/ Correio da Manhã
