Spain weather nightmare as week-long deluge set to ruin Brits' holidays across country

By Richard Ashmore, Senior News Reporter

A forecast map for Spain on May 14 (Image: Agencia Estatal de Meteorología )

British holidaymakers this week could have their holidays blighted by the weather. According to the Spanish national weather agency, Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AE Met), the Iberian Peninsula could see a downpour until at least Thursday, May 15.

New forecast maps from meteorologists show rainfall predicted across the centre of Spain especially around the capital Madrid, but maps also show rain over the coast in popular British beach hotspots like the Costa del Sol and Barcelona. A statement from AE Met for Wednesday even predicted possible "snow" for the Balearics Islands. 

It said: "Unstable conditions will persist across the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands under the influence of a mature low-pressure system located northwest of the peninsula and the deepening of a low-pressure system over North Africa.

Rain forecast map showing Spain on May 15 (Image: Agencia Estatal de Meteorología)

"This will result in cloudy or overcast skies, with almost widespread precipitation expected, with a slight likelihood only in the southwest.

"More intense, abundant, and stormy rainfall is expected during the afternoon, when it could be locally heavy and even very heavy in the plateaus and surrounding mountain ranges, in the Pyrenees, inland Catalonia, and in the southeast, with the possibility of snow in the Balearic Islands."

Going into Thursday May 15, AE Met added that "unstable conditions will persist" across Spain and popular holiday islands like Ibiza and Majorca. 

It continued: "Cloudy or overcast skies will predominate, with almost widespread rainfall, although unlikely in the southwest. 

Spain could be hit by a week of rain until Friday (Image: Getty )

"More intense, abundant, and stormy rainfall is expected during the afternoon, when it could be locally heavy in areas of the eastern half and mountains of the Iberian Peninsula.

"However, high pressure will remain in the Canary Islands, with cloudy periods and the possibility of some light precipitation in the north of the islands, and partly cloudy skies in the south."

In the film My Fair Lady, starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, Hepburn portrays a poor Cockney flower-seller named Eliza Doolittle who strikes a deal with Harrison's character, phonetics professor Henry Higgins, that he could teach her to speak English with a more refined accent than a duchess.

"The Rain in Spain" is a song from the original 1956 musical and is used in the film as a part of professor Higgins's lessons in correct speech for Doolittle.