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Portugal and Spain are once more recovering from widespread flooding in the wake of Storm Claudia brought torrential downpours and powerful gusts last week.

Claudia's Origin and Path

This meteorological event formed from a low-pressure zone that had beforehand ushered in early season cold and snowy conditions through eastern parts of the Canadian territory and the American north-east during the beginning of the eleventh month.

This storm tracked eastwards across the Atlantic in the middle of the second week of November before decelerating and halting to the northwestern area of the Iberian region, caught in the trough of an ever more meandering air current.

Impact on the Iberian Peninsula

The northwestern Spanish region of Galicia was hit first, with three to six inches of rain falling along its west coast in just a single day up to Wednesday night as a leisurely moving system of rain crawled across the western sectors of the peninsula.

Additional rainfall and electrical storms on Thursday caused inundations to parts of Portugal where an older couple perished in the city of 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 campsite and a close-by inn in Albufeira in southern Portugal on Saturday last week, killing an British woman aged 85 and injuring two dozen and eight persons.

Wider Effects across the European continent

Claudia had broader repercussions across Europe's western part. By pulling tropical air from the subtropics, the system assisted in raising temperatures in France's south-west to nearly 30 degrees Celsius, the state's maximum ever November temperature.

By last Friday, this warm and humid air mass collided with a chilly atmospheric body across more northern parts of the continent, generating a band of rain stretching from western Ireland to the Russian Federation.

In the UK, this halting system of rain brought very high rainfall totals, resulting in major inundations in Wales.

As Claudia progressively weakens in the coming days, the chilly atmospheric system will advance southward, giving Europe its premier experience of the winter season.

Related Incidents in the state of California

The Golden State experienced a so-called atmospheric river the previous week, delivering heavy rain and strong winds that resulted in flash flooding and landslides in areas scarred by blazes previously in the year.

More than 50mm of rain fell in California's southern part on Friday, with a another 50 millimetres across extensive areas of California on Saturday last.

In excess of 100 millimetres of rain was deposited on coastal areas of southern California in all, hitting eight inches in total in spots on high ground.

This meteorological feature is a plume of hot, humid air coming from the tropics or subtropics.

Regions previously burned including Palisades and Altadena experienced the most intense the rapid inundations and earth movements, leading to evacuations.

Elsewhere in California, a elderly male lost his life after his automobile was carried away from a submerged bridge, and a young girl aged seven and her parent were dragged into the ocean by big swells on the the state's central shoreline.