SPRING has far from sprung in Spain at the moment – yet another cold, wet and windy snap has hit the mainland and around 30 provinces are under weather warnings for the next couple of days.
Temperatures have dropped across most of the country and high winds are making their way around the mainland and islands.
Yesterday (Monday) was particularly blustery in the Canary Islands, and snow is expected in the whole of Castilla y León except the province of Valladolid, as well as in Madrid; Aragón's northernmost province of Huesca and its near-neighbour in Catalunya, Lleida; the Castilla-La Mancha provinces of Cuenca and Guadalajara; the Extremadura province of Cáceres, and the far-north regions of Navarra and La Rioja.
Tidal surges are likely off coasts from north-west to south-east, with the provinces of Almería (Andalucía), Bizkaia and Guipúzcoa (Basque Country), A Coruña and Pontevedra (Galicia), Tarragona (Catalunya), the whole of the Canary Islands, the regions of Murcia and Cantabria, and the Balearic islands of Formentera and Ibiza on alerts ranging from yellow to red.
The mercury is set to plummet in the daytime in the centre of the country and also along the south coast, both where the Mediterranean merges with the Atlantic and the shores of the Alborán Sea, which lies between Almería and the Morocco-Algeria border.
In the north-east, however, temperatures may rise slightly, providing some respite from the freezing climates the area has suffered so far this year.
Rain could be torrential in localised areas, and develop into storms in the Pyrénées.
Yesterday's forecast of rain turned out to be pessimistic for the south-east and the Mediterranean, although black clouds gathered throughout most of the day and the possibility of showers remains today.
Snow is forecast for western and central areas at altitudes of 800 metres or more, but not expected to fall below 1,600 metres above sea-level in the rest of the country.
