A powerful electrical storm descended last night over Puerto del Rosario, forcing at least five planes destined for Fuerteventura to have to be diverted to land on Gran Canaria. All arrived without major incidents.

 

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The affected flights all originated from the United Kingdom. The first, from Jet2, had taken off from Manchester and at about 8pm, after remaining on hold to the south of Fuerteventura, controllers instructed the flight crew to land at LPA, as reported on flight tracking websites.

Three of the four other planes diverted were from the same airline (Jet2) and had taken off from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Birmingham. The fifth, from Easyjet, was flying from London Gatwick. By 10pm, the situation had not yet returned to normal at FUE. All the diverted flights landed at Gran Canaria’s Gando airport between 9:45 and 9:55 p.m.

The Air Traffic Controllers’ Twitter profile reported the diverted flights on Saturday night due to “storms approaching” Fuerteventura Airport, adding that the weather situation forced them to make “long detours” to reach the island.

The meteorological station at Fuerteventura Airport registered the most accumulated rainfall in the Canary Islands both yesterday, averaging 8.8 litres per square metre in one hour on Saturday October 15, and so far this Sunday morning too, having already recorded 5.8 litres per square meter in one hour.  Meanwhile skies have remained clear over Gran Canaria, with bright sunshine to start the day this Sunday.

Almost all of yesterday’s rainfall, and this morning, has been centred over the easternmost islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura

Spanish State Meteorological Agency AEMET had, earlier in the week, already announced the arrival of a DANA (Isolated Depression at High Altitude) for Friday expected to leave rains throughout this weekend for the Canary Islands. The predicted a potential for storms.