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After a few very pleasant days of warm, almost summery weather to end February, Spain is about to get a sharp reminder that winter isn't done yet. A new rain front is pushing in from the Atlantic on Monday March 2 and it's going to affect a big chunk of the country, bringing everything from moderate drizzle to some pretty intense thunderstorms depending on where you are.

 

 

According to forecasters, the front is connected to a large area of low pressure sitting close to the Iberian Peninsula and it's expected to cross into Spain at around 6am, hitting Galicia first. Up in the northwest the rain should be fairly manageable to start with, but things are going to get a lot more lively as the day goes on.

 

As the front pushes further inland, the focus will shift towards central and eastern parts of Andalucia, where heavy convective storms are expected to fire up during the afternoon. Forecasters are pointing to the southwest of Spain as the area most likely to see the most severe downpours, and people in Huelva and Sevilla should be prepared for some significant overnight rainfall, with the heaviest totals expected during Monday evening and into the early hours of Tuesday March 3.

 

 

One of the more dreaded aspects of this particular weather system is that a lot of the rain is going to be muddy. A large mass of dust that has been picked up from Algeria is travelling with the front, which means that parts of Spain could see what's sometimes called "blood rain" - raindrops that are tinted orange or brown by the Saharan particles mixed in with them.

 

Most of the country is expected to see this at some point, with the exception of the far north and the Canary Islands. The islands will dodge the muddy showers but residents there should still expect temperatures to drop noticeably.

 

A DANA, which is a cut-off low pressure system that Spain is unfortunately no stranger to, is forecast to develop and bring further rain to western parts of the country throughout the day. Huelva, Sevilla, Cádiz and Malaga look set to see continued rainfall, and it's also expected to spread to Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura and even parts of the Valencian Community.

 

 

That same DANA is then expected to settle over the southwest of the country and keep the unsettled weather going into Wednesday morning, March 4, with Andalucia and the Canary Islands both likely to see more rain and possibly more storms.

 

 

Looking a little further ahead, forecasters are also keeping an eye on what could be another significant system arriving Wednesday afternoon and lasting into Thursday March 5, which could bring widespread rain right across Spain, with the east of the country potentially seeing the worst of it.