Majorcan heartland swamped by storm

Short but sweet, Sunday's snap torrential rain dumped as much as 40 litres of water per square metre on the interior of the island in the space of just under an hour damaging roads and swamping the bone dry fields. In Sineu a number of basements were flooded and some river beds collapsed under the strain of the unseasonal downpour which also caught thousands of tourists unawares on beaches or by hotel swimming pools. Firemen had to be called in Sineu and a number of neighbouring villages to help clear roads where rocks had rolled into the path of traffic and a number of trees were brought down in sa Pobla. Firemen also had to help pump out a number of wells which have only been recently opened because they started overflowing under the pressure of the heavy rain. In Sencelles, for example, 25 litres of rain fell per sqaure metre in the space on an hour. The meteorological office said yesterday that this past weekend has been the coolest of the summer and the diverse and extreme weather is unusual. During Friday morning's storm which sparked off the weekend of turbulant weather conditions, 250 bolts of lightening were registered striking the Bay of Palma and the Serra Tramuntana and temperatures dropped as low as 13ºC on Sunday in Lluc. Conditions are however expected to settle this week, but so far this summer the weather has fluctuated from the heatwave which scorched the Mediterranean at the start of last month to the weekend's low temperatures and outbreaks of torrential rain.