Cold drop

A cold drop is a term used in Spain and France that has commonly come to refer to any high impact rainfall event occurring in the autumn along the Spanish Mediterranean coast or across France. In Europe, cold drops belong to the characteristics of the Mediterranean climate. The Spanish-language name of gota fría was directly adapted from the term Kaltlufttropfen introduced by German meteorologists, and became very popular in 1980s Spain as a blanket term to refer to any high-impact rainfall event. In the eastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula, these events are typically caused by the interaction of upper-level low pressure systems strangled and ultimately detached from the zonal (eastward) circulation displaying stationary or retrograde (westward) circulation with humid warmer air masses that form over an overheated Mediterranean Sea in the Autumn. The Spanish equivalent of cut-off low is known as an "isolated depression at high levels" (depresión aislada en niveles altos) and is often abbreviated to the acronym DANA. Such recurring synoptic configurations are not necessarily associated to cold drop events.