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How much would it have to rain in Malaga to end the drought?
Meteorologists explain exactly how much rain the Costa del Sol would need in order to avoid a drought situation
The Junta de Andalucía has just approved over 200 million euros in water supply projects to try and alleviate the drought in the region, and with Malaga’s reservoirs already below 16% of their total capacity and more than 200,000 Malaga residents affected by water cuts in their municipalities or pressure drops, the question is whether the situation can be reversed before the summer.
It seems clear that only abundant and persistent rainfall could remedy the province’s problem in this, one of its worst years ever due to water scarcity. But how many litres of rainfall would Malaga need in order to end the drought?
The director of the Malaga Meteorological Center, Jesús Riesco, has warned that the amount is so high that it is very unlikely that the drought will be fixed before the summer.
“The drought we are experiencing is not going to be reversed in a year,” he said. “It is very difficult to say an amount and, furthermore, it is something that is not going to occur.”
As an approximation, he estimated that it would have to rain twice as much as it rains in a normal year in the province of Malaga. This means that, if according to Aemet data, the annual average rainfall in the province of Malaga is 647 litres per square metre, almost 1,300 litres per square metre would have to fall between now and the summer in order to avoid a drought situation.
This is a generic figure, since as Riesgo explains, the considerations are different depending on the area of the province and depending on whether we are talking about recovering ecosystems, agriculture or reservoirs.
The other option to which Riesco refers, although less desirable, would be that “a spectacular DANA storm arrives that deposits 300 litres on several days in a row” and that “could partially solve the problem for the summer”.
But that is not likely. The current forecasts do not predict any such significant rains, at least not yet.
“We are in a long-lasting drought that is not going to be fixed by the summer,” insists Riesco. “We have lost the rainiest months; there are still February and March to go, so we are going to wait, but the forecasts are not good.”
Image: Archive
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