Valencia's DANA, two years on: what was warned, when, and what has changed

Published 11 October 2026 · Climaviso

On 29 October 2024, a DANA (a cut-off low) dumped extreme rain on the province of Valencia. This is the record of that day's official warnings, hour by hour and zone by zone, and what the data shows for the two years that followed.

AEMET, Spain's weather agency, splits the province of Valencia into four warning zones: Interior norte (Utiel, Requena), Litoral norte (València and its metropolitan area, Paiporta, Catarroja, Chiva, Cheste), Interior sur and Litoral sur (Alzira, Algemesí, Sueca, Gandia). Each warning covers a whole zone, not a single street or ravine.

Before Tuesday

The orange warning came more than a day ahead. On Sunday 27 October at 23:01, an orange rain warning was issued for Tuesday 29 in the two inland zones: 100 mm in 12 hours. On Monday 28 at 22:48 that threshold was raised to 140 mm in 12 hours.

29 October, hour by hour

This is the sequence of orange and red rain warnings that day, at the time each was issued (mainland Spanish time). Yellow and storm warnings are left out so the table stays readable.

Interior sur stayed orange all day. The ES-Alert time comes from Maldita; everything else comes from the warning archive.

What a red warning means

In Spain's warning system, red is the highest level: unusual events of exceptional intensity, with a very high risk to people. A warning is a forecast for a zone. It says a threshold is expected to be crossed, such as 90 litres per square metre in one hour. It does not say exactly where the rain will fall or what damage it will cause. What to do with the warning (closing schools, closing roads, alerting phones) is decided by the civil protection authorities.

Before that day, red rain warnings were rare in the València zone. Since June 2018 there had been only three such days: 13 September 2019 and 3 and 4 May 2022.

After the DANA: more orange and red rain warnings

In the twelve months after the DANA, from 30 October 2024 to 28 October 2025, the four Valencia zones added up to 55 zone-days with an orange or red rain warning. That is the highest figure for any twelve-month period since 2018. In earlier years it ranged from 10 to 35. And the second year, not yet over, already stands at 36: more than any year before the DANA.

A zone-day is one zone with a warning on one day; all four zones warned on the same day count as four. *Up to 11 October 2026.

In the València zone, the red rain warning has come back six times since the DANA: 13 and 14 November 2024, 29 September 2025, 14 and 15 December 2025, and 1 October 2026. And 2025 was the zone's busiest year on record: 70 warning days, 17 of them orange and 4 red. Between 2019 and 2024 the zone had 40 to 56 a year.

The data cannot separate two explanations: heavy rain happening more often, or warnings now being issued more cautiously. Probably both play a part. What it does show is that people in these zones have received more serious warnings since the DANA than in any earlier year.

What has changed for workers

A month after the DANA, Spain created a paid leave of up to four days for when workers cannot get to work because the authorities advise against travel or there is serious risk from severe weather (article 37.3.g of the Workers' Statute, in force since 30 November 2024, according to Legal Today). A warning alone does not grant the leave, but it is usually the first thing people check.

Sources

• Warnings: AEMET's warning archive (CAP format, AEMET OpenData), collected by Climaviso since June 2018. Issue times converted to mainland Spanish time.
• ES-Alert time: Maldita, 30 October 2024.
• Paid leave: Legal Today, 28 November 2024.

Towns in this article

• València
• Paiporta
• Catarroja
• Chiva
• Utiel
• Algemesí

A warning is not damage; a zone is not a building.