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Once again, Portugal and Spain find themselves battling the aftermath of widespread flooding in the wake of Tempest Claudia unleashed heavy rain and strong winds last week.

Claudia's Formation and Trajectory

The storm system formed from a low-pressure zone that had previously ushered in early season freezing temperatures and snowfall through the eastern sectors of Canada and the north-eastern US at the start of November.

Claudia journeyed east across the Atlantic over the second weekend of November before losing momentum and stopping to the northwestern area of the Iberian peninsula, snared in a dip of an progressively more wavy jet stream.

Effects in Iberia

Galicia in north-west Spain was initially impacted, with a substantial 80 to 150 millimetres of rain pouring down along its west coast in just 24 hours up to Wednesday night as a sluggish front of rain pushed across the western sectors of the peninsula.

Additional rainfall and electrical storms on Thursday last week caused inundations to areas in Portugal where a senior pair lost their lives in the city of Lisbon after floodwaters from the swollen Tagus entered their home as they rested.

Tempestuous weather persisted into the weekend, with a violent whirlwind devastating a camping ground and a adjacent hotel in Albufeira in Portugal's south on Saturday last week, fatally injuring an elderly British lady and wounding 28 individuals.

Extended Consequences across the European continent

Claudia had broader repercussions across the western European nations. By pulling tropical air from the subtropics, the system assisted in raising temperatures in France's south-west to 85.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the state's maximum ever November temperature.

By the following Friday, this tropical air mass clashed with a cold air mass across more northern parts of the continent, forming a rainfall belt running from western Ireland to Russia.

In the United Kingdom, this stationary front of rain produced record-breaking rain accumulations, causing severe flooding in the Welsh region.

As Claudia progressively weakens early this week, the cold air mass will move towards the south, providing the continent its first taste of colder weather.

Simultaneous Occurrences in California

The US state of California underwent a plume of tropical moisture recently, bringing intense precipitation and strong winds that provoked rapid flooding and landslides in regions scarred by blazes in the recent past.

Over two inches of rain was recorded in southern California on last Friday, with a additional two inches across extensive areas of California on Saturday.

More than 100mm of rain fell over shoreline regions of the state's south in total, reaching eight inches in total in areas of elevated terrain.

This meteorological feature is a narrow band of tropical, saturated air originating from the tropical or subtropical regions.

Regions previously burned including the Pacific Palisades area and Altadena region suffered the most severe the sudden floods and landslides, forcing residents to flee.

Across California, a 71-year-old man passed away after his car was swept off a flooded bridge, and a child of seven years and her parent were dragged into the Pacific by big swells on the the state's central shoreline.