A busy Sunday for mountain rescue teams in Mallorca. | Council of Mallorca

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Mallorca mountain rescue teams carried out four operations on Sunday to help hikers injured or lost in the mountains. According to reports on social networks, the first operation was in the morning and consisted of freeing a hiker whose leg had been trapped in Fornalutx. They also treated a climber who had fallen from a height of five metres in Caimari.

In the afternoon, the fire brigade had to rescue a hiker lost in the Puig Roig area and a group of people who had become disoriented, without water or electricity, on Puig de Galatzó. And, the emergency services have warned the public to stay alert ahead of the arrival of storm ‘Herminia’ which is forecast to hit the Balearics later today, Monday.

The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) will maintain yellow warnings for strong gusts of wind and rough seas on Monday. Specifically, according to the AEMET information consulted by Europa Press, from 8:00 a.m. Ibiza and Formentera are under warning for coastal phenomena with waves of three and four metres.

In the case of Mallorca, the warning will be activated at 10.00 a.m. for wind gusts that could reach 70 kilometres per hour from the southwest with waves of three to four metres. The warning will be extended to Menorca from 12.00 noon and is expected to remain in effect throughout Monday and early Tuesday morning until the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Rain, a drop in temperature and wind will characterise this week’s weather forecast in the Balearics, according to the deputy spokesman of the State Meteorological Agency on the Islands, Jorge Rodríguez, on Monday. The advance of the ‘Herminia’ storm will mean that cloudy intervals will predominate with the likelihood of some light, occasional and isolated rainfall.

In addition, a moderate southwesterly wind is expected, with intervals of strong and gusts of 70 km/h, although in the high areas of the Serra de Tramuntana it could reach 100 km/h. Warnings have been issued for the risk of strong winds and heavy seas. The warnings for coastal phenomena will remain in effect throughout the islands until the early hours of Tuesday, according to Rodríguez, when once again the sky will be partly cloudy at dawn, becoming cloudy or overcast in the morning with rain and showers that could occasionally be accompanied by thunderstorms and small hail. In the late afternoon, the sky is expected to become mostly cloudy again.

The snow level will be at 1,200-1,400 metres this Tuesday in the Balearics. Temperatures will drop, reaching their minimum at the end of the day. And the wind will blow moderately from the west with some strong intervals, turning northwest in the afternoon. On Wednesday, the sky will again be mostly cloudy at dawn. However, the arrival of a new storm will cause the clouds to increase during the afternoon until the sky is overcast or cloudy, with a chance of light rainfall at the end of the day.
Temperatures will continue to fall and the wind, whose intensity ‘will tend to subside as the days progress’, said the deputy spokesperson of Aemet in the Balearics, will blow moderately from the northwest with some intervals of strong wind, turning southwest in the afternoon.

This new storm over the Balearics will leave cloudy skies on Thursday, with rain and showers that could occasionally be accompanied by thunderstorms and small hail. On Thursday, temperatures will remain little changed and the wind will blow moderately from the southwest, turning northwest and north in the morning, with strong intervals from the afternoon onwards.

Again on Friday, the skies over the Balearics will be cloudy at dawn with occasional showers, which may be more persistent in the north of the archipelago and in the Serra de Tramuntana. Temperatures will drop again and the wind will blow from the north and northeast, with some intervals of strong wind. Finally, the deputy spokesperson for the AEMET (State Meteorological Agency) has referred to the meteorological ‘uncertainty’ facing the weekend, as rainfall may continue although ‘there are still many days to go’. In any case, the forecast is that this week will be marked by rain, a drop in temperature and wind, which will blow strongly, especially on Monday and Tuesday, subsiding as the days progress.

The storm, which is already causing chaos in the UK, will reach the Mediterranean and the Balearics at the end of the day, when the most adverse phenomena of this storm will occur, triggering warnings in 15 autonomous communities. Fresh weather warnings for heavy rain and wind have been issued for parts of England and Wales by the Met Office after a weekend of battering by Storm Eowyn.

Following miserable weekend weather which saw record wind speeds of 114mph as Storm Eowyn swept through the UK, new warnings have been put in place as the low pressure that caused Spanish-named Storm Herminia arrives. A warning for periods of heavy rain that could cause some flooding of roads and properties was in place for the West Midlands and most of Wales until 11.59pm on Monday, with the Met Office predicting 20mm to 40mm to fall quite widely and 50mm to 70mm on higher ground. A yellow warning for rain was also in place in London as well as the southeast and southwest of England until 10am Tuesday.