Storm Francis has ushered in 2026 (it's winter, not summer) by battering the Canary Islands with torrential rain, strong winds, and coastal phenomena that have the entire population on edge. Social media platforms like Twitter have been flooded with profiles of supposedly expert fearmongers who exploit crises like the 2024 Valencia DANA storm to sow panic.
Tourism in southern Gran Canaria, and especially the hospitality industry, is paying the price for the political class's fear of rain on the green islands in the orbit of Tenerife. They regulate people's lives when it rains in winter because they fear events that could cost them their professional careers.
In La Palma, which is green precisely because of its orography and exposure to the Atlantic, gusts reach 90 kilometers per hour, while in the rest of the archipelago up to 20 liters per square meter accumulate in just one hour and 60 in 12 hours, according to warnings from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
But alongside the effects of the storm, the Canary Islands are facing another storm: an information overload. Yellow and orange alerts, maps, charts, and constant notifications in the media and on social networks are saturating the public, who are forced to decipher the difference between a moderate shower, a locally heavy shower, or a persistent downpour. The sense of risk is increasing, but understanding of the phenomena doesn't always keep pace with media coverage.
As Francis moves from west to east and threatens unsettled weather until Saturday, the Canary Islanders navigate between caution and confusion. The information overload is testing their ability to react to a storm that, although known, always seems unpredictable.
On the street, citizens are adapting to this new normal: some avoid riverbeds and coastal areas; others cautiously continue their daily activities, while the youngest observe weather warnings with the same attention they give to messages on their social networks.
The underlying question is clear: in an archipelago accustomed to constant weather monitoring, to what extent does over-information help or confuse?
The Canary Islands welcome the new year with rain, wind and waves, but also with the need to filter data and act with judgment, remembering that in each alert there is a real risk, but also an invitation to understand the climate beyond the screen.
