Valencia suspends classes and raises alert to red for heavy rain

Valencia closes schools and raises rain warning to red

How far must a city be stopped to prevent it from happening again? Valencia City Council has suspended classes this Thursday and Friday in schools located in flood-prone areas and in areas hit by the DANA of 29 October 2024. The measure also affects senior centres, cemeteries, parks and gardens, while AEMET has raised to red warning for torrential rain in areas of Tarragona, Castellón and Valencia.

Two years later, the map repeats itself. The forecast in circulation is valid for 1 October 2026 and describes locally intense but very slow-moving storms: highly focused torrential showers —"it will rain by towns and very irregularly"— with high risk thresholds above 60 mm/1h or 160 mm/12h. Hail of 2 to 4 centimetres and gusts of 70 to 100 km/h as a bonus.

How much rain is expected in the Valencian Community?

Forecasts point to accumulations exceeding 150 litres per square metre that could reach 250 in the hardest-hit spots, with a high danger of flooding and overflowing of river courses and ravines. The practical translation of those numbers is simple: stationary storms that dump rain in the same place for hours. There are already images of swollen ravines and a night of intense electrical storms in Castellón.

The trail of decisions includes the suspension of four Renfe commuter lines and loudspeaker announcements in several municipalities, as well as mobile phone messages. And an uncomfortable paradox: in some towns the first ES-Alert arrived when the warning had already been active for hours.

The alert that no longer scares anyone

The other front of the issue is not meteorological, but one of trust. Some argue that a red alert is issued "for anything" and that this overzealousness will end up anaesthetising people: the boy who cried wolf, applied to mobile phones. Others respond with the opposite argument, that from ignoring the warning so much came the flood and nobody paid attention.

The underlying problem is measurable in hours and costs: closed schools, halted businesses and families reorganising the week because of a storm that sometimes never arrives. The calculation of lost school days and suspended activity gives a figure that no one has yet put on the table.

Riverbeds, reservoirs and the wound of 2024

Infrastructure is back at the centre. Part of the analysis calls for budget for new riverbeds and for cleaning ravines, with the thesis that without hydraulic works this will repeat every autumn. Another holds that the necessary actions have already been carried out and that the risk is under control. In between, the Hydrographic Confederation reinforcing shifts due to the state of the reservoirs.

The ghost of 2024 hovers over every decision, and with it the political discussion about who warned late and who allowed businesses to open. It is a terrain where management and narrative mix, and where each side brings the data that suits it.

With bright sunshine and all, the city stops again. In 2026, to close Valencia it is no longer necessary for it to rain: it is enough that they announce it.