ON A STRANGELY unforgettable Easter Sunday – known as ‘Domingo de Pascua’ or ‘Domingo de Resurrección’ – the main thing being ‘resurrected’ was the water level in the province’s ’embalses’ (reservoirs), with Storm Nelson wreaking havoc with heavy rainfall and high winds.
In the face of adverse weather conditions, many of the traditional Semana Santa processions – this time to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus – were cancelled. This brought further disappointment to the region’s ‘cofrades’ and ‘hermanadades’ (religious brotherhoods). This year, Semana Santa will be remebered for its Biblical floods.
In La Alpujarra, the results of Storm Nelson were all too visible. These included a cracked and buckled main road below the white village of Capileira; multiple cars having to be dug out by snowploughs near the high village of Trevélez; unmade tracks becoming impassible because of water runoff – including below Bayacas on the swollen Rio Chico riverbed; rock falls on main roads between towns; tree branches falling across tracks; and motorists driving themselves into unfortunate situations.
Heedless of the fact that this was a ‘proper’ storm – not ‘dos gotas’ of rain or a sprinkling of snow that disappears by midday – some motorists recklessly drove their ‘turismos’ on to mountain forestry tracks that had experienced 20cm of snowfall. One driver become stuck above Capiliera, in a level of snow that was challenging to 4x4s.
With the snowline down to 1,300m on Saturday, it was something of an ‘own goal’ for state meteorological agency, Aemet. Unusually, the agency only launched a yellow weather warning for rain, but failed to include snow, despite this being the heaviest snowfall on the south side of the Sierra Nevada for several years. “I cannot remember the last time I saw anything like this,” said an agricultural worker who was searching for his cows on the ‘sierra de Cáñar’,
As the day drew to a close, La Alpujarra was treated to a pretty sunset, bringing the fresh snow on the local mountain peaks into clear view.
With temperatures set to rise to the mid-20Cs by the end of the week, it seems that the storm – for now – is over. However, for some municipalities, the repair efforts for broken roads and rockfall might take some time to complete.
