Most of our courier packages arrive or leave via Madrid, but even Barcelona will not escape this. There is an alert issued by Agencia Estatal de Meterología, the Spanish Weather service, that temperatures are due to plummet in Spain starting today, 2nd February. The cold may well affect Barajas airport in Madrid and icy road conditions will disrupt courier services throughout Spain. With my usual apologies for bad translation, the warning is set out below the forecast for Madrid although you can see it in Spanish here.
A cold air intake from the European continent, driven by winds from the North, will affect the Peninsula and Balearic Islands, recording very low temperatures, well below the usual for the time of year. The outbreak of cold air will begin this morning in the North East of the Peninsula, extending during Thursday and Friday throughout the Peninsula and Balearic Islands, with widespread frosts, even in coastal areas, the Bay of Biscay, Mediterranean Coast and Balearic Islands. Minimum temperatures are expected -10 to -5 °C and maximum not exceeding 3 ° C / 5 °C over large areas of the interior. It will be even colder on Friday and Saturday in areas of the northern half, where, in some places, the temperatue will not rise above freezing. During the whole episode the temperature in high areas of the Peninsula will be less than -10 °C at night, and in high mountain areas could reach temperatures of about -20 °C.
Between this afternoon and early morning hours of Thursday the passage of a front from north to south through the Peninsula will lead to some rainfall, with the snow level down to sea level in the northern peninsula and about 600 m in the southeast. Later, because of the continental air mass, which is cold and dry, no rain is expected in the Peninsula, except in the eastern Cantabrian Sea, east of Catalonia and the Balearics, where snow can occur at any altitude.
Especially significant in this situation is the presence of moderate to strong winds from the north which will produce a wind factor considerably lower than indicated by the thermometers.
