The storm warning for eastern Catalonia was not an empty alert. During the evening and night, rain and thunderstorms did move across parts of the coast and nearby hills. But by Thursday morning, the picture from the available official observations was more nuanced than the most dangerous pre-event scenario suggested.
The clearest signal came from Sitges, where AEMET reported 61.4 mm on 16 September. According to the station summary, the entire daily total fell during the 18:00 to 24:00 window, underlining how concentrated the episode was on the coast south of Barcelona.
Barcelona also saw overnight rain. At the Port Olímpic station, precipitation continued after midnight, with rainfall recorded at 00:00, 01:00 and 02:00 before conditions improved later in the night. By early Thursday, the event was clearly easing at several coastal stations.
That matters because the pre-event warning phase had highlighted the risk of very intense rainfall, including the possibility of more than 40 litres per square metre in 30 minutes and, in the most exposed counties, more than 90 litres per square metre in three hours. On the basis of the currently accessible official station data, that feared regional worst case cannot be confirmed.
At the same time, this should not be misread as a non-event. A total above 60 mm in Sitges is a meaningful storm signal for a short Mediterranean episode, especially when the rain is concentrated into a few hours. Such setups can still trigger local surface flooding, water on roads and sudden runoff in vulnerable urban and coastal areas.
For travellers and residents, the main message on Thursday morning is one of caution rather than alarm. The acute overnight phase has eased, but local showers and renewed downpours can still create brief hazards in underpasses, low spots and along small coastal catchments. Catalonia remains a region where short, intense rain events can escalate quickly when storms anchor near the coast.
In short: the warning was justified, the coastal belt did take a hit, but the feared large-scale flood disaster has not materialised based on the official data currently available.