A storm hits Valencia with winds of almost 150 kilometers and causes damage in Alzira.

After an orange warning for storms in the Valencian Community, several action plans overlap: the meteorological (AEMET), the regional civil protection (112 and Emergency Coordination Center), and the territorial planning against floods (PATRICOVA and municipal plans). All this translates into a chain of procedures and decisions that go from issuing the warning to the eventual deactivation of the emergency.

1. Meteorological procedure: what AEMET does with the orange warning

The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) is the one that issues the orange warning for storms when it foresees a significant risk (strong storms, possible large hail, accumulations of 30 mm/h, etc.), as reflected in various notes from the Generalitat about episodes in the interior of Valencia and Alicante (note 07/05/2025, note 16/06/2025).

According to the framework described by the Generalitat itself, AEMET is obliged to:

• Issue and update Meteoalert warnings (yellow, orange, red) with the area, time slot, and expected thresholds.
• Communicate to the Autonomous Emergency Coordination Center any relevant change in the forecast, as detailed in the note about the Special Plan against flood risk (note 14/11/2024).

That is, the key “meteorological procedure” is the issuance of the orange warning and its formal communication to the regional Civil Protection; from there, management passes to the emergency field.

2. Activation of alerts and emergency levels by 112 and the CCE

With the AEMET warning, the Ministry of Emergencies and Interior, through the Emergency Coordination Center (CCE–112), can:

• Establish the orange level alert for rain/storms in the affected areas (southern interior of Valencia, interior and northern coast of Alicante, etc.), disseminating it through official bulletins to town halls and emergency organizations (07/05/2025, 16/06/2025).
• Call analysis and monitoring meetings with involved organizations (firefighters, security forces, Hydrographic Confederation, etc.) to assess whether to declare an “Emergency situation 0” due to floods, the lowest level of the special plan, as occurred in recent episodes in Valencia and Castellón (05/03/2025).
• Issue formal recommendations: suspend school, sports, and outdoor activities in the most vulnerable areas, close access to streams and ravines, and limit mobility in areas affected by the DANA or persistent storms (05/03/2025, 04/03/2025).

If the situation worsens and the warning escalates from orange to red or an imminent risk is confirmed, the CCE can raise the emergency level or even propose sending ES-Alert messages to mobiles, a decision taken in red-level episodes in Castellón (03/03/2025).

3. Role of PATRICOVA and municipal planning

The PATRICOVA (Territorial Action Plan on Flood Risk Prevention) is not “activated” like a typical emergency plan, but it decisively conditions management when there is an orange warning for storms:

• It defines floodable and risk zones, which serve as a reference to decide in which areas to suspend classes or activities. For example, Valencia has linked class suspension with orange warnings to PATRICOVA zones and districts affected by the DANA (15/09/2025).
• Its cartography is used to review and, if necessary, delimit new flood zones and suspend urban planning procedures in especially vulnerable areas (05/02/2025).
• Municipalities must have Territorial Plans and Municipal Action Plans against floods or within their general emergency plans; the Generalitat reminds them of these procedures in annual prevention campaigns (29/08/2024).

Additionally, the Júcar Hydrographic Confederation is responsible for warning about the risk of overflow of ravines and watercourses, a key coordination when the orange storm may lead to floods (14/11/2024).

4. From management to deactivation

As the storm evolves, the CCE and AEMET continuously review warnings and observed data. When warnings drop from orange to yellow and no significant incidents are expected, the CCE can withdraw the “Emergency situation 0”, as it did in Valencia and Castellón after a persistent rain episode (06/03/2025).

In parallel, measures are progressively lifted (reopening access to ravines, resumption of classes and activities, normalization of services) and monitoring is maintained less intensively in case storms reactivate.

5. What is expected from citizens and organizations

All communications repeat two ideas: with an orange warning for storms in the Valencian Community, extreme precautions are requested and only official information from 112 and AEMET should be followed. Organizations and municipalities must review their plans, activate preventive resources, and make decisions such as closures or mobility restrictions depending on the specific risk of their areas, especially those identified by PATRICOVA.

The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) is the public meteorological service at the national level and the State Meteorological Authority. In the management of meteorological emergencies, its role is essential but always as a technical information and support body, not as the authority that directs the emergency or activates Civil Protection alerts.

Legal basis and institutional framework

AEMET is a state public body dependent on the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge. Its Statute, adapted to the Law 40/2015, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector, defines its functions and governance structure (Council of Ministers note).

Within this framework, AEMET formally holds the status of State Meteorological Authority and, according to article 8 of its Statute, its functions include training, documentation, and communication activities in meteorology and climatology, as well as the direction and coordination of national meteorological activities (AEMET–University of Barcelona agreement).

Additionally, the State Secretariat of Interior and the General Secretariat of Civil Protection integrate AEMET into emergency coordination bodies (state CECOD, regional CECOPI), under civil protection regulations and specific risk plans, recognizing its role as the competent meteorological body.

Technical functions in meteorological emergencies

AEMET performs several key functions when there is risk from adverse meteorological phenomena:

• Forecasting and monitoring: it is the body responsible for meteorological forecasting and monitoring in Spain and for producing weather forecasts, using observation networks, radars, satellites, and numerical models (interview with AEMET president).
• Issuing warnings for adverse phenomena: through the Meteoalert system, AEMET issues yellow, orange, and red warnings for intense rain, storms, wind, snow, extreme heat, maritime storms, etc. These warnings are preventive and technical in nature and do not by themselves declare an emergency or measures such as evacuations (Demócrata explains).
• Technical support to Civil Protection: its Statute and operational practice explicitly include technical support to civil protection in risk situations, providing detailed information on the expected evolution of the phenomenon, danger thresholds, and affected areas (Demócrata).
• Priority and official information in coordination centers: in a CECOPI activated by a DANA or other extreme episode, AEMET's information is considered “priority and official”, and operational decisions rely on its reports and real-time updates, ensuring “rigorous, homogeneous, and verified” data (Emergencies to the judge about the DANA).
• Participation in state crisis bodies: in complex devices, such as the specific plan for the 2026 solar eclipse, AEMET integrates the State Coordination and Direction Committee (CECOD), providing continuous meteorological monitoring for decision-making by Interior, Civil Protection, UME, DGT, etc. (Interior note).
• Cooperation with autonomous communities: through agreements, AEMET supplies specific forecasts aimed at regional civil protection and coordinates information exchange, as reflected in the agreement with the Balearic Islands, which highlights the importance of adverse phenomena forecasts for institutional response (BOE Balearic Islands–AEMET).

Relationship with Civil Protection and other administrations

Civil protection regulations clearly distinguish between:

• AEMET meteorological warnings, which are technical and scientific in nature.
• Civil protection alerts (including the ES-Alert mobile system), which are administrative and operational decisions made by competent authorities (usually autonomous communities, and in certain cases the State) to activate resources, order evacuations or confinements (statements about the DANA; regional ES-Alert).

Consequently:

• AEMET does not declare emergencies, nor activate ES-Alert, nor decide evacuations. That competence belongs to civil protection authorities (regional or state), as Interior reminds when explaining that the management of territorial Civil Protection plans corresponds to autonomous communities (Interior note).
• Its function is to feed the system with official meteorological information —warnings, forecasts, real-time analysis—, both to administrations (Civil Protection, 112, town halls) and the general public, so those with competence can assess the expected impact and adopt measures.
• In CECOPI and other coordination centers, the AEMET representative integrates the technical risk monitoring group, analyzes meteorological evolution, provides real-time precipitation or wind data, and participates in the continuous update of the scenario before and during the emergency (account before the judge about the DANA).

In summary, AEMET is the meteorological pillar of the National Civil Protection System: it sets thresholds and risk maps, monitors and warns, provides technical advice, and integrates into coordination bodies. The decision to convert those warnings into an “alert” with operational consequences always lies with the competent civil protection authorities.

In Spain, what is colloquially called a “disaster zone” is legally termed a “zone seriously affected by a civil protection emergency”, a figure regulated in the Law 17/2015, of July 9, on the National Civil Protection System (arts. 21 to 24, especially art. 23). The declaration applies, among other cases, to extreme meteorological phenomena such as DANAs, floods, storms, or severe weather.

1. Material requirements: type and intensity of damages

For the Government to declare an area as seriously affected by a civil protection emergency, according to art. 23.2 of Law 17/2015, at least one of these major conditions must be met:

• Relevant personal or material damages resulting from an incident that:
  • Seriously disrupts living conditions of the population in a specific geographic area (for example, numerous unusable homes, need for mass relocations, inability to carry out ordinary economic activity, severe damage to agricultural holdings, etc.).
• Total or partial paralysis of essential public services (drinking water, sanitation, electricity, basic transport, communications, critical health services, etc.) as a direct consequence of the meteorological phenomenon.

Additionally, the law requires that material damages be certain, economically assessable, and related to insurable goods (art. 21). This assessment is carried out by specialized bodies or technical services of the Administrations, usually supported by reports from the Insurance Compensation Consortium and civil protection.

In practice, as reflected in recent Council of Ministers agreements published in the BOE —for example, Order PJC/1222/2024, which publishes the declaration agreement for the October-November 2024 DANA—, the following elements are evaluated among others:

• Magnitude of the episode (intensity and extent of rain, winds, waves, etc.).
• Number of deceased, injured, missing, and evacuated or relocated persons.
• Damage to key infrastructures (roads, bridges, electrical networks, water supply, airports, railways).
• Economic impact on productive sectors (agriculture, livestock, commerce, tourism…).

2. Formal and procedural requirements

The declaration has a triple formal dimension:

• Competent body: it corresponds to the Council of Ministers, which adopts a specific agreement (art. 23.1 Law 17/2015).
• Proposal: the agreement is adopted at least jointly by the Ministers of Finance and Interior, and possibly other affected ministries (Transport, Agriculture, Housing, etc.). Since Law 17/2015 itself, the Minister of Interior is assigned the function of proposing this declaration.
• Territorial delimitation: the agreement must precisely delimit the affected area (municipalities, provinces, or specific scopes).

Regarding initiative, the law foresees that the declaration can be requested by interested public administrations (for example, autonomous communities or local entities), although it does not grant them an automatic right to obtain it. Before deciding, the Government may request a report from the affected autonomous community or communities, as well as technical information from the Directorate General of Civil Protection and Emergencies, AEMET, and other bodies.

3. Legal form of the declaration

The Council of Ministers' agreement is published in the BOE, usually by means of:

• A ministerial order that includes the agreement as an annex (example: Order PJC/1222/2024).
• And, if applicable, one or more royal decree-laws or subsequent regulatory norms that develop the specific package of aid (such as Royal Decree-law 10/2021, for damages from storm “Filomena,” or Royal Decree-law 2/2019 for storms and other catastrophic situations).

Article 24 of Law 17/2015 establishes an open catalog of measures that can be activated after the declaration: aid for damages to housing and belongings, compensation to local corporations for emergency expenses, aid to industrial and service establishments, aid to agricultural holdings, fiscal measures (exemptions in property tax, reductions in business tax, benefits in traffic fees, etc.), and labor and Social Security measures (force majeure ERTE, contribution moratoriums, etc.). The specifics are made “under the terms approved by the Council of Ministers” for each case.

4. Key idea

In summary, to declare an area as “disaster zone” in Spain, it is not enough that there has been a severe meteorological episode; it is necessary to prove significant personal or material damages that seriously alter daily life or paralyze essential services, that the competent Administrations request or support the measure, and that the Council of Ministers adopts a formal agreement, published in the BOE, that delimits the territory and activates the legal aids provided in Law 17/2015 and its implementing regulations.