Southeastern European Nations Confront Heightened Flood Danger Because of Soggy Conditions
As storms and tropical storms have raged in the Atlantic and Pacific east, Europe has encountered severe conditions of its own. A low-pressure system that emerged over the Mediterranean midweek traveled towards the northeast into the Balkan region on Thursday morning, bringing broad downpours, stormy weather and lengthy rainfall.
Ongoing Rains and Severe Alerts
The low-pressure area is predicted to continue into the end of the week, with forecasting tools showing two-day amounts of three to five inches of rain across much of the Balkan states. Highest-level advisories were declared for Serbia, south-west Romania, northeastern Greece, and the Dodecanese and North Aegean Islands, emphasizing the danger of flooding and danger to residents. Strong winds also shut down classes on the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian Islands.
Frigid Air Intensifies Severity
Frigid temperatures drawn in from eastern Europe worsened the intensity, producing heavy snowfall across the Dinaric mountain range, with certain forecasts estimating snow levels of nearly three feet by the coming weekend.
Previous Floods in Spanish Regions
Earlier in the week, eastern Spain and the Balearics experienced serious flooding as the leftovers of Hurricane Gabrielle moved across the Iberian peninsula before stalling over the Balearic Sea. Valencia and Ibiza were worst affected; Gandia recorded 14 inches in 12 hours – significantly exceeding its average for the month, while the island had 254 millimeters in a full day, its wettest day since at least 1952.
Highways, transit hubs, public parks, and school buildings were compelled to shut down, while a rain gauge near Aldaia registered 57mm in just 35 minutes, resulting in the local ravine to overflow. The flooding come just shy of a year after devastating floods in the region in 2024 that killed over 230 individuals.
Tropical Cyclone Bualoi Hits Vietnam
The powerful typhoon made landfall across the central part of Vietnam this week, bringing torrential rain, powerful gusts, and huge sea swells. Over 300 millimeters of precipitation was measured within a single day on the start of the week, triggering flash floods and landslides that obstructed more than 3,000 roads and cut off communities across provinces in the north. Numerous air travel routes were halted or rescheduled, and railway services between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were stopped.
Officials confirmed 36 deaths and 147 injuries, with 21 persons still missing. Hundreds of thousands of residences were impacted or inundated, with over 51,000 hectares of rice and other crops wiped out. National officials has calculated that the storm has led to over $350 million in property damage this recent period.
