While Storm Bert brought snow, wind and rain to the UK this weekend, weather conditions weren’t too much better in one of Britain’s favourite holiday destinations.
Spain’s typically sun-soaked Costa Blanca was battered by a torrential rainstorm on Saturday (November 23), causing drains to burst and streets to flood.
Local YouTuber ‘Benidorm by Ana’ documented the dramatic shift in conditions in Albir, a town just 10 minutes away from Benidorm.
In a video, she explained how the forecast had predicted “cloudy and partially sunny” weather – a far cry from what actually happened.
She took a walk around the town at 11am, and said it had been raining “non-stop” since around 5am. Ana, like other locals seen in the video, was armed with an umbrella.
Giving a sense of just how unusual the rain was, she explained: “Many people probably won’t get why we are so excited about the rain, why we are heading outside, why we are filming it.
“But take into consideration that in our area, having such a rainstorm is not a common thing at all. We enjoy it like the British enjoy a day of sunshine back in their home country. That would be approximately the same.”
As she made her way towards the beach, Ana noted how the rain water had formed “small rivers” on the roads, flowing down towards the Mediterranean Sea.
The water on the roads next to the beach was flowing over the kerb and onto the sand. Ana said there was “literally no one” apart from her at the beach, and it’s easy to see why, although there were a few “hiding” in tapas restaurants and bars.
She also showed a point at which all the rain water flowed into the sea in a makeshift mini river, coming from a dried river bed that runs through Albir. “This is why we almost never get big floods here,” she explained. “Just look at how fast it goes into the sea.”
At the end of her video, Ana showed a manhole cover that had been pushed out of place by water. She said: “This is insanity, my God. I’ve never seen the cover of the sewage just being pushed by the water like that.”
