Weather Canary Islands: Snow hits Tenerife and La Palma sparking emergency plan - after raging floods swept through holiday hotspots

The government has issued a ‘state of pre-alert’ in the first stage of its emergency plan due to the weather. Both Tenerife and La Palma remain on alert for further snowfall today.

Aemet, Spain’s national weather agency, has issued yellow warnings for snow for both islands which are in force until this evening. Forecasters predict up to 4cm of snow in 24 hours. Aemet said: “Snowfall may take the form of showers and could be locally heavy. Snow level 1800-2000 m. At higher altitudes, greater accumulations are expected.”

Images from Teide National Park in Tenerife have shown the area's iconic mountain covered in a blanket of snow. The Tenerife Cabildo shared several videos yesterday showing the volcano completely transformed by snow.

Due to ice on the roads, all access routes to the popular Teide National Park remain closed to ensure public safety. The Canary Islands Government warned that local populations should follow the government’s self-protection advice, which includes avoiding snowy areas, making sure that vehicles are adequately prepared and monitoring weather forecasts.

Forecasting for today, Aemet said: “In the central peaks of Tenerife and La Palma from 1800-2000m onwards, snowfall is expected, which may take the form of showers and which could be locally heavy, leaving accumulations that are expected to be more significant at higher altitudes.” Elsewhere in the Canary Islands rain showers are forecast, with yellow warnings are in force across the islands for rain today, March 4.

Aemet said: “Generally cloudy or overcast. Occasional rain and showers, which may be locally heavy, mainly in the north and northwest of the western islands, and from the morning onwards they are not ruled out in the eastern islands.”

The Canary Islands has been deluged over recent days, with streets turned into rivers by the weather phenomenon known locally as DANA - a Spanish acronym for high-altitude isolated depression, and unlike common storms or squalls it can form independently of polar or subtropical jet streams. When cold air blows over warm Mediterranean waters it causes hotter air to rise quickly and form towering, dense, water-laden clouds that can remain over the same area for many hours, raising their destructive potential. Following the weekend of rain in much of the archipelago, the DANA will move from the Gulf of Cadiz towards the Canary Islands this week, making the weather unstable on the islands until Thursday, according to local reports.