Aviation fuel to create rain

In the last two weeks two airliners have had to dump their complete load of fuel to enable them to land again at Alicante , after taking off and finding cockpit warning lights flashing. The last two weeks we have had abnormal amounts of wet rainy weather, could it be that all that aviation fuel in the atmosphere has created this weather situation.

Rain Rain and Jelly Fish

Well at last we have just had a week of rain , heavy at times and grey skies to go with it, the temperature dropped and it was a bit cool to say the least. On the television news the main stories were of flooded streets and film of cars being swept down rivers of muddy water, people get so used to parking in dried up drainage channels that when the rain appears the channels turn into a raging torrent and their cars disappear bobbing down the river. The happy people were the farmers whos crops relished the good soaking. Now the rain has stopped and we are back to blue skies and warm days, the evenings have a chill to them and the sea has cooled down a bit but it is still nice for a swim.

At Javea, tons of jelly fish were washed up on the beach, so many that council workers spent most of the day clearing them away.

La Gota Fria - The Cold Drop

photo credit www.FreeFoto.com

La Gota Fria - The Cold Drop, This is the name given to the heavy rains we experience in the Costa Blanca at this time of the year, a bright sunny day transforms into black skies and a deluge of rain in a very short time. La Gota Fria is created by the warm sea of the Meditteranean and the cooler air coming from Northern Europe, the sea warms the air which rises higher and higher to form cumulus clouds, warm updrafts carry the water droplets even higher forming thunder clouds, these clouds can often reach 20000 feet, When the droplets become too heavy they fall as heavy rain and hailstones, often causing severe damage to crops and property.

The spanish met office is warning of an extreme Gota fria this year, as the Meditteranean is 6 degrees warmer than normal for this time of the year. As I am writing this it is spitting with rain, so maybe the Gota Fria has started.

Wheres the Rain

Once more it is a hot, sunny morning. On Wednesday the weather forecast predicted rain and thunderstorms for Thursday and Friday, It was a bit cloudy at times yesterday but still no rain.
In 2005 reservior levels dropped to 45% of there capacity after the driest winter and spring for 60 years and rationing of water supplies for up to two million people could soon be put into place in the Murcia region.
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Olive growers in the town of Granatula de Calatrava, in the La Mancha area of central Spain got more than they expected while deepening a well to extract more water,they unleashed a 30-meter-high gusher - or spout of water - that has been shooting from the earth for more than a month, the fountain gushes its mixture of water, clay, sand at rate of 50 litres a second.

The source of the reddish fountain is a huge aquifer, a water-bearing stratum of rock or sand, which has been put under pressure, the farmers who unleashed the surprise tried to block it off but were overwhelmed by the sheer pressure of water pushing up from a depth of possibly 140 metres.