Spain’s Apocalyptic Floods Expose the Spread of Extreme Weather Denial

It was a typical Tuesday evening for Francisco De Orta, an Argentinian friend of mine who works as a barber in Valencia. Little did Francisco know that a single missed appointment would be the difference between life and death. Because, as he headed back home earlier than usual, the streets of La Torre, Valencia, were just beginning their terrifying transformation into raging rivers.

It wasn't until later, as he watched news of cars floating like driftwood in nearby towns that he realized he was directly in the water's path. "That water is coming this way," he thought, frantically rushing to his balcony only to see the murky tide already creeping towards his doorstep.

No warnings. No alerts. No sirens.

Only an hour later, at 8:12 p.m. did his phone blare with an SMS alarm commanding residents "to avoid any kind of relocation" in Valencia. But by then, an area home to hundreds of thousands of people was already facing life-threatening conditions from neighborhoods surrendering to the voracious floods.

Francisco was lucky—the missed appointment had given him enough time to make it home safely and prepare for the worst. But for hundreds of others, it was far too late.

Because this was no mere rainstorm; it was an apocalyptic flood, a year's worth of rain unleashed in less than eight hours. And all that insurmountable amount of water streaming down from the mountains came rushing down the rivers and tributaries towards the Mediterranean Sea, swallowing everything on their way. Bridges crumbled like sandcastles, entire communities vanished beneath the murky depths, and over 200 souls were claimed by the waters.

In its wake, parts of Spain seem to have been swallowed by the Mediterranean itself, forever altering the landscape and the lives of those who survived this cataclysmic event.

The Mediterranean ‘Petrol Can’

The science behind what happened is startlingly clear. Valencia’s streets turned to rivers not just because of heavy rain, but because the Mediterranean Sea is heating up at an unprecedented rate. The sea had warmed twice as fast as the global average for oceans in the past 30 years, with waters climbing as much as 5 Cº above normal.

This summer, its water temperatures reached a staggering 28.47°C on 15th August 2024, breaking records for the highest daily median surface temperature. This created what climate scientists call a “petrol can” effect, with the warm Mediterranean waters feeding water vapor — the fuel for rainfall — into the atmosphere. In simple words: a perfect storm incubator.

And when a cold air front collided with this warm moisture, it triggered the gota fría, or “cold drop,” a phenomenon where dense clouds can remain over the same area for hours, multiplying their destructive potential and, as seen in Spain, unleashing fierce hailstorms and tornadoes alongside rain—which was, according to the Spanish weather service, 10 times stronger than a normal downpour.

The Valencia region was the most affected, with many places receiving more than 300 liters of water per square meter—or 1,200 coffee mugs. The worst? According to Spain’s meteorological agency, Chiva received 491 l/m² in just eight hours—the equivalent of a year's worth of rainfall and enough to fill a large bathtub more than three times over (!).

The connection to climate change is undeniable: warmer air can hold 7% more moisture for each degree of warming, creating a recipe for downpours like this one.

And what makes the Mediterranean particularly vulnerable is its size. Enclosed by land, it heats and retains warmth faster than open oceans, which is why Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, is seeing Mediterranean storms rival those that plague the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Becuase it is, essentially, like heating a cup of tea rather than a bathtub.

And this “petrol can” is only getting hotter, leaving more cities at risk.

Natural Cycles vs Unnatural Disasters

Cars tossed like toys in urban streets, cars drowning in rivers of mud, cars transforming from symbols of freedom into inescapable death traps. The images from Spain are both shocking and eerily familiar.

As mud-splattered royalty flee angry protesters and governments scramble to explain their lack of preparedness, it is also undeniable that the severity of these floods undoubtedly caught many off guard. And yet, viewed in a broader context, the events of the past week are part of a larger pattern playing out before our eyes.

Last month in Italy, vehicles were swept away as roads morphed into rivers. Before that, France faced its own aquatic onslaught. In September, central Europe saw 24 lives lost to floods across Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Even England, famous for its drizzle, was caught off guard by tropical-style downpours. And let's not forget the devastating one-two punch of Hurricanes Helen and Milton that left the US reeling.

These events are all screaming proof of two things:

1. The human-caused climate crisis is intensifying at an alarming rate.

2- The Global North still hasn’t accepted the realities of extreme weather, and so, it is improvisational

Because, otherwise, how else can we explain the tragic loss of so many lives in wealthy nations from disasters that were forecasted days in advance?

From the Global North's perspective, the climate crisis—fueled by their relentless burning of coal, oil, and gas—has long been viewed as a distant threat, a problem for the poor far-off lands in the Global South. This delusion has fostered a false sense of security that's now being washed away in muddy torrents.

Of course, floods have always been part of Earth's natural cycles, but what we're witnessing now is nature on steroids. It is the global physics of a fossil-fueled world that is loading the dice toward disaster. As said before, the warmer the atmosphere gets, the more moisture it can hold, which translates to longer droughts and more intense downpours. Scientists have long understood this relationship. Yet it wasn't until 2004 that the first attribution study formally linked a weather event—the devastating 2003 European heatwave—to our changing climate. Despite mounting evidence, many remain in willful denial.

Today, the World Weather Attribution has shifted the conversation. Their quick attribution studies in the immediate aftermath of weather disasters inform people in real time about the role of the climate crisis.

Their attributions include the late summer flooding in South Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon that killed more than 2,000 people and displaced millions; the torrential rains that left at least 244 dead in Nepal from September 26-28; the floods in southern Brazil that claimed over 169 lives earlier this year; and the devastating hurricanes in the US that killed 360 people and inflicted more than $100 billion in damage.

Their initial analysis of the Spanish floods suggests that rising temperatures made the extreme rainfall about 12% more intense and twice as likely. Factor in parched earth and concrete jungles, and you have a recipe for disaster—droughts and floods, two sides of the same climate coin.

So, while the scale of destruction is unprecedented, the analysis of these climate catastrophes is, by now, quite familiar. And climate scientists' warnings have become a broken record.

Thirty-two years after the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit and nine years post-Paris Agreement aimed to limit global heating to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, global temperatures continue to shatter records, and emissions are accelerating faster than ever. We're flooring the gas pedal while climate pile-ups mount in our rearview mirror.

Governments, fixated on economic growth, drag their feet on climate action while silencing those who dare to sound the alarm and disrupt business as usual. Our legal systems are effectively compelling citizens to accept catastrophe as the new normal.

What else to call it?

Meanwhile, the scenes unfolding globally read like a Hollywood apocalyptic script: Commuters swept off subway platforms in China's Zhengzhou metro flooding, glass walls peeled from Vietnamese skyscrapers during super-typhoon Yagi that snap wind turbines like twigs. Each horrifying clip numbs us further to the escalating crisis.

Each grotesque clip risks numbing us to the escalating crisis.

We're living through an era of unwelcome climate superlatives: the hottest two years in the world’s recorded history coming one after the other, widespread coral reef death, Europe's most intense downpour, Canada's largest wildfire, the Amazon's worst droughts and wildfires, and Southeast Asia's strongest typhoons.

This is just the beginning. As long as we continue pumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, these records will fall with terrifying regularity until "worst ever" becomes our new normal. But we can't afford to let our baselines shift. Again, these are not isolated cases—they're part of a pattern long predicted by scientists and UN experts.

Which brings me back to the haunting question: Why are wealthy nations, with all their resources and forecasting capabilities, still losing so many lives to "predictable" disasters?

The only answer I can fathom, beyond the Global North's climate mala praxis, is another troubling question: How do you effectively communicate the extreme danger of something no one has ever experienced before?

Today, More Than Ever: A Wake-Up Call to Humanity

The fact that we're experiencing these catastrophes when we still haven’t breached the ominous 1.5 C of global heating threshold should serve as an urgent warning to slash emissions. Because today we are on track to hit up to 3°C by 2100. If we're having a fatal time explaining the danger of current events, imagine the consequences if we continue on this path of exponentially increasing frequency and severity.

The UN seems to be running out of words to describe the gravity of the situation: "code red for humanity," "We have two years to save the world," "It's climate crunch time for real." Yet, the very nations hosting climate talks are fueling the fire they claim to fight. Azerbaijan is the third consecutive COP host planning to increase oil and gas production, following in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Even Brazil, next year's host, intends to boost output. They're not alone - many of the world's richest nations, including the US, Australia, and Norway, are complicit. This year's talks will address how to finance a "transition away from oil and gas" – a vague goal finally accepted at last year's COP after three decades of talks.

The disconnect between this sluggish response and the apocalyptic scenes in Spain and elsewhere should jolt the global consciousness.

So move along. Nothing to see here. Just another ordinary, everyday apocalypse.

If past experience is any guide, the world's reaction to the floods in Spain will mirror that of rubberneckers at a crash site: slow down, gasp at the horror, outwardly express sympathy, inwardly thank fate picked someone else—and then foot down on the fossil-fueled accelerator.

This is the grim reality of our climate-disrupted era. Extreme weather catastrophes have become so commonplace that we risk becoming numb to them. Instead of righteous outrage and determined action, there's an insidious sense of complacency: "These things happen. Someone else is responsible. Somebody else will fix it."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, the waters have receded, but recovery will take weeks, if not months.

My friend Francisco isn't waiting for government aid: he's been caked in mud, clearing the debris from his home with nothing but a broom and shovel. His salon business, he says, is completely ruined. Yet he counts himself lucky.

"It's just material stuff that got ruined. I don't have time to complain. All I can do now is get to work and clean up."

So now it's up to us, those fortunate enough to have escaped destruction's path, to raise our voices for all the Franciscos and potential Franciscos out there. After all, the original meaning of apocalypse is revelation – lifting the veil, laying bare the truth. To honor this, we must resist the urge to normalize disaster scenes and stop pretending we can carry on as usual.

We've just witnessed an extraordinary, devastating moment in the history of the United States.

But make no mistake: Climate change doesn't give a damn about politics or which party holds power. The US (and the world) will face stronger storms, hotter heatwaves, and deadlier wildfires as long as they continue to burn oil, coal, and gas. No amount of denial or policy dismantling can change this stark reality. Trump will not be above the laws of physics, and nor will the country that he leads. If Trump follows through with his threat to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the biggest loser will be the United States itself.

Yet, hope persists.

The result of this election will be seen as a major blow to global climate action, but it cannot and will not halt the changes underway to decarbonize the economy. Local governments will step up in many places, both in the US and around the world.

But for real change to occur, we must amplify these voices of reason. So, in the face of discouraging news and seemingly insurmountable odds, we must become louder than ever before.

For the sake of our world.