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Once again, Portugal and Spain find themselves battling the aftermath of extensive flooding in the wake of Storm Claudia unleashed torrential downpours and powerful gusts over the past seven days.

The Storm's Genesis and Journey

This weather system originated from a region of depressed atmospheric pressure that had beforehand ushered in early season freezing temperatures and snowfall through the eastern regions of Canada and the American north-east in early November.

This storm journeyed east across the Atlantic during the second weekend of November before decelerating and halting to the north-west of the Iberian peninsula, snared in a dip of an increasingly amplified jet stream.

Effects in Spain and Portugal

Galicia in north-west Spain was the first affected, with three to six inches of rain coming down along its Atlantic coast in just 24 hours up to Wednesday night as a slow-moving band of rain pushed across the western sectors of the Iberian peninsula.

Further showers and thunderstorms on the following Thursday brought flooding to parts of Portugal where a senior pair perished in the city of Lisbon after floodwaters from the swollen Tagus invaded their residence as they rested.

Tempestuous weather persisted into the weekend, with a violent whirlwind tearing through a outdoor lodging area and a adjacent hotel in Albufeira in southern Portugal on Saturday last week, claiming the life of an 85-year-old British woman and wounding 28 people.

Extended Consequences across Europe

Claudia had more extensive impacts across the western European nations. By drawing warm 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 late autumn reading.

By last Friday, this tropical air mass met a cold air mass across the northern regions of the continent, creating a precipitation zone extending from Ireland's west to Russia.

In the Britain, this halting system of rain produced record-breaking rain accumulations, leading to significant waterlogging in the Welsh region.

As Claudia continues to weaken in the coming days, the chilly atmospheric system will move towards the south, providing the continent its premier experience of colder weather.

Related Incidents in California

California encountered a so-called atmospheric river recently, causing heavy rain and high-velocity gusts that provoked flash flooding and landslides in zones impacted by blazes in the recent past.

In excess of 50 millimetres of rain fell in the southern region of the state on Friday, with a additional two inches widely across the state on the subsequent Saturday.

More than 100mm of rain accumulated over coastal parts of Southern CA in aggregate, hitting eight inches in total in locations at higher elevations.

Such a weather system is a plume of warm, moist air stemming from the equatorial or near-equatorial zones.

Burn scar areas including Pacific Palisades and Altadena region suffered the most intense the rapid inundations and earth movements, prompting evacuations.

In other parts of the state, a 71-year-old man lost his life after his automobile was carried away from a inundated overpass, and a seven-year-old girl and her parent were dragged into the ocean by large waves on the Central Coast.