No snow for Bigastro

One of our friends from England phoned yesterday to ask about the snow that we’d had. She’d seen a forecast that showed a snowfall in the Alicante province and naturally assumed that meant the whole area would be covered in a blanket of the white stuff.

The forecast she’d seen was right in that inland parts of the province, on high ground, would have seen snow at the weekend but not in Bigastro. In the time we have lived here, we have seen ice form in shallow pools when the night time temperatures have been low but the only snow was a short flurry that lasted no more than ten minutes and was gone just as quick.

On Saturday though, some parts of the Vega Baja, notably at Catral and Almoradí saw hail and of course we had rain for four days which was heavy at times.

The hail and heavy rain will have damaged the lemon and potato crops. The earliest crops of potato that will be ready for picking soon could well have suffered with all that rain. Lemons do not like the cold and therefore could have been damaged by the hail.

Normally, agriculturalist welcome rain in this area because it cleans the ground and benefits crops like the artichokes but too much is just as bad as too little.