Spain’s “Gota Fria” or “Cold Drop” is affecting air traffic at its east coast

Spain’s “gota fria” (in English cold drop) is affecting air traffic at the east coast of Spain. This Friday morning, the airport authorities closed the airports of Almeria (until 13:00 (UTC +2)) and Murcia (12:00). A storm is currently affecting flights to and from Palma de Mallorca as the airport stopped arriving traffic between 09:00 and 11:00 and seriously reduced arrival traffic until 18:00. Thunderstorms around Barcelona are likely to affect air traffic at Spain’s second biggest airport.

Screenshot taken at 09:30, a runway change in progress. Flights are holding and/or diverting

Yesterday evening, weather seriously affected air traffic at Alicante Airport. Thirteen flights diverted to other airports in Spain.

Wikipedia Gota Fria (Cold Drop)

Gota fria (or cold drop in English) is a weather phenomenon often occurring in the Spanish autumn. It is experienced particularly along the western Mediterranean and as such, most frequently affects the east coast of Spain. It is a closed upper-level low which has become completely displaced (cut off) from basic westerly current, and moves independently of that current.

Cutoff lows may remain nearly stationary for days, or on occasion may move westward opposite to the prevailing flow aloft (i.e., retrogression).^[1] The term is also used to describe the meteorological phenomenon associated. In Spain, it appears when a front of very cold polar air, a jet stream, advances slowly over Western Europe, at high altitude (normally 5–9 km or 3–5.5 mi). This phenomenon is equally apparent near the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the Colombian Caribbean, with peaks surpassing 5 km in altitude.