Climate Change Made Portugal's Devastating Storm Season 30 Percent Wetter, Study Finds

The series of storms that battered Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula in early 2026, killing 18 people in Portugal alone and causing billions of euros in damage, were significantly intensified by climate change, according to a new study by the World Weather Attribution group published on Wednesday.

The report found that the wettest days in the region are now approximately 30 percent more intense than they were in pre-industrial times, when the global climate was 1.3 degrees Celsius cooler. In northern Portugal and northwestern Spain specifically, rainfall intensity has increased by around 11 percent compared to pre-industrial levels.

Between 16 January and 17 February, nine named storms, including Kristin, Leonardo, and Marta, swept through the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco. The toll in Portugal was severe: 18 dead, hundreds injured and displaced, and a trail of destruction across the Centre, Lisbon and Tagus Valley, and Alentejo regions. Houses and businesses were destroyed or badly damaged, roads were cut, schools closed, and hundreds of thousands lost power, water, and communications.

"This is exactly how climate change manifests itself: weather patterns that were once manageable are transforming into far more dangerous disasters," said Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, one of the study's authors. David Garcia-Garcia, a climatologist at the University of Alicante, described the volumes of water observed in some locations as "a massive shock" to infrastructure and soils.

The storms were driven by an unusual atmospheric pattern: an anticyclonic system "blocked" over Scandinavia and Greenland channelled a succession of Atlantic storms into Western Europe. Abnormally warm Atlantic waters amplified the moisture content of these systems, a mechanism that climate scientists expect to intensify as global temperatures continue to rise.

The study lands at a moment when Portugal is still counting the cost of the storm season. Just this week, the Secretary of State for the Budget confirmed that the government's entire fiscal margin for 2026, built on the back of a strong 2025 surplus, will be consumed by storm recovery spending. EDP announced it has restored power to 100 percent of affected customers after repairing 6,000 kilometres of damaged network and 5,800 towers, a mobilisation that drew repair crews from Spain, Brazil, France, and Ireland.

For anyone living in Portugal, whether a lifelong resident or a recent arrival, the implications are deeply practical. The Portuguese Firefighters League is now calling for an emergency fire prevention plan, warning that storm-felled trees and destroyed firebreaks have left central Portugal dangerously vulnerable heading into the summer fire season. The question is no longer whether such extreme weather will return, but how soon, and whether Portugal's infrastructure and emergency planning can keep pace with a rapidly changing climate.