Red alert for rains: what it means and what to do if AEMET activates the maximum level

According to Spanish legislation, the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) is the National Meteorological Service and the meteorological authority of the State, with the central competence to prepare forecasts and issue warnings of meteorological phenomena that may affect the safety of people and property, as well as to provide meteorological information to administrations and civil protection systems.

1. AEMET Statute: core competencies in warnings

The main framework is in Royal Decree 186/2008, of February 8, which approves the Statute of AEMET (text in BOE).

• The article relating to its competencies states that, as the National Meteorological Service, it corresponds to AEMET: "the preparation, supply, and dissemination of meteorological information and forecasts of general interest for citizens throughout the national territory, and the issuance of warnings and forecasts of meteorological phenomena that may affect the safety of people and material goods" (Royal Decree 186/2008, art. 8, letter a).
• The same provision configures AEMET as the provider of basic meteorological information for public institutions competent in civil protection, defense, and state security, integrating these tasks into the management of the public meteorological service (art. 4.4 a)).
• The Agency's Production and Infrastructure Directorate is the unit that, at the operational level, is responsible for preparing warnings and forecasts, as well as operating the national observation, telecommunications, and forecasting systems necessary for this (Royal Decree 186/2008, internal organizational structure).
• The Statute also emphasizes the critical nature of services linked to warnings about adverse meteorological phenomena, which must always be guaranteed in the provision of jobs and in the organization of the service (Royal Decree 186/2008, personnel regime).

2. Relationship with Civil Protection and the National Civil Protection System

Regarding civil protection, the general framework is set by the Law 17/2015, of July 9, on the National Civil Protection System (text in BOE).

• Law 17/2015 establishes that certain risks – including adverse meteorological phenomena, as well as floods, forest fires, or others – must be addressed through Special Civil Protection Plans (art. 15.3, in connection with the definition of special plans where this type of phenomena is expressly mentioned).
• Although the Law does not go into technical detail about warnings, it relies on the existence of a state meteorological service that provides the essential base information for activating plans, declaring emergency situations, and adopting preventive measures. In practice, this role corresponds to AEMET, whose warnings and forecasts feed:
  • The State General Emergency Plan for Civil Protection.
  • Specific state plans (floods, tsunamis, etc.).
  • Autonomous and local plans based on official warnings of adverse phenomena.
• The planning regulations (state plans for floods, volcanic risk, tsunamis, etc., approved by Council of Ministers agreements and published by resolution in the BOE) are issued in accordance with Law 17/2015 and presuppose the provision, by AEMET, of warnings and meteorological scenarios that allow activating alert, pre-emergency, or emergency phases.

3. Collaboration with other administrations and autonomous meteorological services

The AEMET Statute expressly regulates cooperation with autonomous communities and local entities (Royal Decree 186/2008, articles on institutional relations and territorial structure):

• AEMET may enter into collaboration agreements with autonomous communities in meteorological and climatological matters within their respective competence.
• The possibility of establishing a collaboration and meeting body with autonomous meteorological services is foreseen, "with the purpose of participating in common initiatives or joint action plans in meteorology and climatology." This framework serves, among other purposes, to coordinate warnings, threshold criteria, and communication formats for adverse phenomena.
• The Statute contemplates AEMET Delegations in all autonomous communities, facilitating daily operational relations with autonomous and local civil protection services in issuing, updating, and monitoring warnings.

4. Meteorological authority and provision of warnings for critical sectors

Besides its general function of warnings to the population, AEMET has a specific role in sectors where safety directly depends on meteorological information:

• Royal Decree 186/2008 recognizes AEMET as state meteorological authority and aviation meteorological authority, in application of the Chicago Convention and Law 21/2003, on Air Safety. Among its functions is the provision of meteorological services supporting air and maritime navigation, necessary for traffic safety and regularity (art. 8, letter b)).
• In this area, AEMET's warnings and meteorological products are official references for civil aviation and maritime traffic, integrated into procedures regulated by air and maritime navigation regulations.

5. Summary

Overall, Spanish legislation configures AEMET as the State's reference meteorological service for issuing warnings and forecasts of adverse phenomena, with the capacity to:

• Issue official warnings of hazardous phenomena throughout the national territory.
• Provide key information to civil protection systems and other public bodies.
• Coordinate with autonomous meteorological services through agreements and collaboration bodies.
• Provide critical meteorological support to air and maritime navigation and national defense.

All this is fundamentally supported by Royal Decree 186/2008, the AEMET Statute, and Law 17/2015 of the National Civil Protection System, along with emergency planning regulations published in the BOE that develop special plans for risks associated with adverse meteorological phenomena.

In Spain, a local authority can order evacuations during red alert episodes or serious emergencies as long as it acts within the civil protection framework and respects fundamental rights. The key is that the decision is supported by the current civil protection plans, is based on technical reports, is coordinated with other Administrations, and meets criteria of necessity and proportionality.

1. Basic legal framework

The general regime is in Law 17/2015, of July 9, on the National Civil Protection System (text in BOE) and in the development regulations (state, autonomous, and local plans, and the Basic Civil Protection Standard). This law:

• Recognizes that Autonomous Communities and Local Entities have developed their own civil protection services and bodies and participate in emergency planning and management.
• Provides for territorial and special plans (for example, against adverse meteorological phenomena, floods, forest fires) approved by the competent Administration, including local.
• Imposes on citizens and legal persons the duty to cooperate and comply with orders and instructions from the competent authority in emergencies.
• Authorizes, if necessary, measures such as temporary requisition of goods, temporary occupation, and suspension of activities, with the right to compensation for damages suffered.
• Establishes that restrictive measures on rights can only last the strictly necessary time and must be appropriate to the emergency's extent.

When evacuation requires entering homes, the law refers to article 15.2 of Organic Law 4/2015, on citizen security protection, which strengthens guarantees in such intervention.

2. Competent local authority and emergency plans

At the local level, the specific competence is defined in autonomous civil protection regulations and in territorial and municipal emergency plans:

• Law 17/2015 states that territorial plans can be from Autonomous Communities or Local Entities and are approved by the corresponding Administration.
• These plans identify which local body directs the emergency (usually the mayor's office or the authority it designates) and how the Operational Coordination Center is activated.
• For specific risks (floods, adverse meteorological phenomena, fires, etc.), special plans set thresholds (e.g., AEMET red alert) and phases in which evacuations should be recommended or ordered.

In practice, the local authority orders evacuations when the applicable municipal or special plan foresees that measure for the declared risk level and the plan has been formally activated.

3. Material requirements: necessity, suitability, and proportionality

Based on Law 17/2015, the basic material requirements are:

• Serious and proven risk: evacuation must respond to a real danger to life or physical integrity (e.g., forecasted floods, extreme winds, waves, fires).
• Technical support: the decision is based on information from meteorological, hydrological, civil protection technical services, fire departments, etc., confirming the need to evacuate.
• Suitability: evacuation must be an appropriate measure to reduce risk in the affected area, compared to less burdensome alternatives.
• Proportionality: the territorial and personal scope (which neighborhoods or areas are evacuated, for how long) must fit the risk intensity. It is not legitimate to evacuate beyond what population protection requires.
• Temporality: as the sections on restrictive measures on rights in Law 17/2015 remind, evacuation can only be maintained while the danger situation lasts.

4. Formal requirements, coordination, and guarantees

Besides material justification, the local authority must:

• Act within the activated plan, following the procedures and emergency levels contemplated therein.
• Coordinate with autonomous civil protection bodies and, if applicable, with the Government Delegation, especially if state resources may intervene (Security Forces and Corps, Military Emergency Unit, etc.).
• Communicate and clearly order the evacuation (affected zones, safe routes, reception points), using the channels provided in the plan.
• Respect fundamental rights: when it is essential to enter homes or force people to leave, the regime of Organic Law 4/2015 applies, with guarantees related to the inviolability of the home and subsequent judicial control.
• Provide basic assistance to the evacuated population (shelter, urgent health and social care), as Law 17/2015 contemplates when defining the “immediate response” to emergencies.

In summary, a local authority can order evacuations during a red alert if it does so as a competent civil protection authority, within the framework of an activated emergency plan, with sufficient technical basis, respecting proportionality and strictly necessary duration, and coordinating with other involved Administrations.

There is no official closed count, at least publicly and accessible in a single statistical series, of how many red warnings for rain AEMET has issued in the Valencian Community in the last ten years. With the data published in reports and specialized news, it can be said that we are talking about an order of magnitude of about two or three dozen red warnings for rain in that period, probably in an approximate range of between 20 and 35 episodes, but an exact and unique figure cannot be set without accessing the internal details of AEMET's database.

What figures the available sources provide

The consulted sources offer several relevant partial data:

• A statistical report cited by various media (including a specific document analyzed by Newtral) indicates that, in total, AEMET has issued 49 red warnings for rain in the Valencia area from 2007 to 2024/2025. This data is broader than the “last ten years” and, moreover, focuses mainly on the province of Valencia.
• The same analysis breaks down recent years with a sequence of red warnings for rain in the Valencian environment with, for example, 2 episodes in 2016, 8 in 2018, 14 in 2019, 1 in 2020, 4 in 2022, 1 in 2023, and 6 in 2024. This sum yields 36 red warnings for rain in a time frame that approximates a recent decade, but the exact year cut is not formulated exactly as “2016‑2026,” but as a statistical window specific to the report.
• Another journalistic source reviewing the last decade in the Comunitat speaks of 35 red alerts of all types of phenomena (rain, wind, waves, etc.), of which 23 would have been specifically for rain. Here the scope is described as the Whole Valencian Community, but the count includes only a specific ten-year interval defined by the news piece itself.
• In parallel, various chronicles about recent storms (DANA of October 2024, subsequent depressions, and autumn episodes of 2025) confirm that red warnings for rain remain exceptional, very localized (for example, southern coast of Valencia or southern interior of Castellón), and concentrated in a few high-intensity episodes in the decade.

Why the figures do not exactly match

Differences between numbers appearing in the press (23, 35, 36, 49…) are explained by several technical factors:

• Different geographic scope: some statistics refer to the province of Valencia, others to the entire Valencian Community (Valencia, Castellón, and Alicante). A red warning for rain affecting only one province may or may not be counted, depending on each analysis's criteria.
• Phenomenon counted: some counts sum only red warnings for rain or “accumulated precipitation”; others include all red alerts (rain, wind, coastal phenomena, extreme temperatures, etc.). This makes the total number of “red warnings” necessarily greater than that of “red warnings for rain.”
• Definition of “last ten years”: not all sources take the decade as “from October 1, 2016, to October 1, 2026.” Some use cuts like 2014‑2018, 2015‑2025, or “since 2018 until today,” which slightly shifts the considered period.
• Counting unit: a single torrential rain episode may involve several successive or overlapping red warnings (by hours or zones), and each analysis may decide whether to count them as a single “episode” or as several different operational warnings.

What can be stated with certainty

Despite these methodological differences, the published data allow some solid conclusions:

• Red warnings for rain in the Valencian Community are very infrequent compared to the total AEMET warnings: in an internal report cited by the press, red-level warnings in all Spain accounted for about 0.4 % of total warnings issued.
• In the last decade, the number of red warning episodes for rain in the Comunitat clearly falls within the range of dozens, not hundreds. More concrete partial counts point to a minimum of 23 and values that could approach 30‑35 episodes, depending on how temporal limits and exact area are defined.
• The trend shown by partial series is that a significant part of these warnings is concentrated in a few years with major DANAs or depressions (for example, 2018, 2019, 2024, and 2025), while other years record no red level for rain in the Comunitat.

In summary: with publicly available information, it can be estimated that in the last ten years AEMET has issued in the Valencian Community on the order of between two and three dozen red warnings for rain. To obtain an exact and audited number, it would be necessary to access AEMET's historical warning database directly and apply a homogeneous counting criterion (area, phenomenon, period, and definition of “episode”).