– Snowing in the Pyrenees – In late May (Ice Age Now, May 22, 2015):
“Snowfalls In May Paint The Spanish Pyrenees White,”
Pyrenees
Spain: Heaviest Snowfall in Decades Leaves 250,000 Without Power
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads
A couple walk on the beach during a snow storm in Barcelona, Spain. (AP)
Nearly a quarter of a million people in north-eastern Spain were without power yesterday after the heaviest snowfall in decades brought major disruption to the region.
A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads on the border between Spain and France. Barcelona recorded its heaviest snowfall since 1962 causing road, rail and flight chaos.
Catalonia’s interior minister, Joan Boada, said the power cuts, caused by a fault in a high-tension cable, were affecting the area around Girona, 60 miles north of Barcelona.
Spain’s border with France at La Junquera was closed causing 30-mile traffic jams while 170,000 pupils had the day off as schools were shut, local newspapers reported. About 3,000 people were put up in a town hall overnight and many others stranded in their cars as railway lines and roads became impassable, Boada said.
Tens of thousands more were unable to get home after snow fell at lunchtime and many left their offices to photograph the rare scenes of central Barcelona and its beach lying under a blanket of snow.
“I’ve never seen anything like this here in all my life,” said Barcelona resident Raquel Lasmarias, 35.
Read moreSpain: Heaviest Snowfall in Decades Leaves 250,000 Without Power