Catalonia issues red warning for extreme rain across seventeen counties

Catalonia's meteorological service, Meteocat, issued a red warning on Saturday for seventeen counties along the coast and near-coast of Girona, Barcelona and Tarragona provinces, warning of a possible "Mediterranean hurricane" bringing torrential rain from the afternoon onward. Forecasters said more than two hundred litres of rain per square metre could fall in around six hours, along with strong winds, tornadoes and waterspouts in some areas.

Sara Sarroca, Meteocat's director, and forecaster Santi Segalà said weather models pointed to the formation of a mesoscale convective system, popularly known as a "medicane", that could turn an already heavy spell of rain into what they called an "exceptional episode". Sarroca said all Meteocat staff had been activated to track the rain, while Segalà said forecasters were also watching rainfall that had already hit the south of the Iberian peninsula in the preceding hours, particularly Murcia and Albacete. The system was moving towards Catalonia's north-east coast, Segalà said.

Catalan president Salvador Illa urged "maximum caution" and said the warning was "no joke", announcing he would chair a meeting of the region's Inuncat flood emergency plan on Saturday afternoon to track the rain's progress. Catalonia's Civil Protection service said it would send an emergency alert, Es-Alert, to mobile phones in the affected area.

The red warning covers the Alt and Baix Empordà, Pla de l'Estany, Garrotxa, Gironès, Selva, Maresme, Vallès Oriental, Vallès Occidental, Barcelonès, Baix Llobregat, Garraf, Alt Penedès, Baix Penedès, Alt Camp, Tarragonès and Baix Camp counties, according to Meteocat. The agency said the alert could extend to inland areas of Girona province on Sunday.

Organisers of a housing-rights demonstration planned for Saturday in Barcelona and L'Hospitalet postponed it until Monday evening in Barcelona's Plaça Urquinaona, citing Civil Protection's recommendation that planned activities be rearranged to avoid putting people at risk. Civil Protection said all the day's planned activities should be held at another time.