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Weather tracker: Storm Babet leaves trail of destruction across Portugal

This article is more than 3 months oldJodie Woodcock for MetDesk

As front moves north to batter UK coasts, Storm Aline brings more heavy rain and strong winds to Iberian peninsula

Although Storm Babet has been battering the coasts of the UK during the second half of this week, it had already left behind a trail of destruction across Portugal as it developed out in the Atlantic. Strong winds and torrential rain on Monday night into Tuesday resulted in flooding, with streets swamped underwater and the drainage system at Faro airport in south Portugal unable to cope under the deluge.

Holidaymakers and local people were left running for cover as ceilings in the airport terminal building collapsed when they could no longer hold back the rainfall.

Storm Babet: body of woman recovered from river as evacuations orderedRead more

Private weather stations across the municipality of Faro, in the south of the Algarve region, recorded totals widely above 50mm. An official weather station at Faro airport recorded 59.2mm on Tuesday – nearly reaching the October average of 60.2mm for the weather station of the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere.

The Iberian peninsula has also been braced for Storm Aline to sweep in on Friday. Weather warnings were out in force as another bout of heavy rain and strong winds moved in from the Atlantic, with eastern coastal areas of Portugal experiencing more than 50mm of rain within six hours on Thursday.

Spain also had wind gusts above 60mph across the Extremadura and Andalucía regions. The northern coasts of Spain were also under an amber coastal warning as wave heights reached up to 8 metres on Thursday night and into Friday.

On the other side of the Atlantic, temperatures plummeted below normal in Florida in the US as a sharp cold front gave the southern state some of the coldest conditions since March. Temperatures fell into the low double figures and were almost 10C below the average minimum for the time of year.

On Central America’s Pacific coast, Hurricane Norma has been churning away a little over 200 miles from mainland Mexico, and is expected to track northwards towards the southern Baja California peninsula by Saturday morning local time. As of 6am local time on Thursday, Norma reached category 4 status, where sustained winds of at least 130mph were recorded. Travelling at about 7mph, the hurricane is likely to weaken before reaching land but that will not reduce the rainfall impacts that are expected with torrential rain, flash flooding and landslides possible in the vicinity.

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