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Portugal and Spain are once more dealing with the consequences of extensive inundation in the wake of Storm Claudia delivered heavy rain and powerful gusts last week.

Claudia's Origin and Path

This weather system formed from an area of low pressure that had earlier caused unseasonably early freezing temperatures and snowfall through the eastern sectors of Canada and the north-eastern United States in early November.

This storm journeyed east across the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the second week of November before losing momentum and stopping to the north-west of the Iberian peninsula, trapped within a trough of an increasingly amplified atmospheric river.

Impact on the Iberian Peninsula

The northwestern Spanish region of Galicia was initially impacted, with a substantial 80 to 150 millimetres of rain coming down along its western coastline in just 24 hours up to the evening of Wednesday as a leisurely moving system of rain crawled across the western areas of the peninsula.

Additional rainfall and electrical storms on Thursday led to floods to Portuguese localities where an elderly couple lost their lives in Lisbon after floodwaters from the swollen Tagus invaded their residence as they were asleep.

Unsettled atmospheric states continued into the weekend, with a twister devastating a outdoor lodging area and a adjacent hotel in Albufeira in the south in Portugal's south on Saturday last week, claiming the life of an British woman aged 85 and injuring 28 individuals.

Extended Consequences across the European continent

This system triggered wider effects across the western European nations. By pulling tropical air from the subtropical zones, the system helped temperatures in France's south-west to nearly 30 degrees Celsius, the nation's all-time high November temperature.

By last Friday, this warm and humid air mass clashed with a cold air mass across the northern regions of the continent, forming a rainfall belt extending from western Ireland to Russia.

In the UK, this stalling band of rain brought record-breaking rain accumulations, leading to major inundations in the principality of Wales.

As the storm progressively weakens in the coming days, the cold air mass will push south, providing the continent its initial glimpse of colder weather.

Simultaneous Occurrences in California, USA

The Golden State experienced an "atmospheric river" recently, causing heavy rain and high-velocity gusts that provoked sudden inundations and debris flows in zones affected by wildfires earlier this year.

More than 50mm of rain poured down in southern California on Friday, with a additional two inches broadly over the state on the subsequent Saturday.

In excess of 100 millimetres of rain was deposited on coastal parts of southern California in aggregate, hitting 200mm overall in locations at higher elevations.

Such a weather system is a narrow band of tropical, saturated air coming from the equatorial or near-equatorial zones.

Locations with fire damage including the Pacific Palisades area and Altadena experienced the worst of the rapid inundations and landslides, leading to evacuations.

Elsewhere in California, a 71-year-old man died after his automobile was washed off a submerged bridge, and a seven-year-old girl and her parent were dragged into the Pacific by large waves on the Central Coast.