Final Considerations
A MCS passed over Madeira between 10 and 12:30 UTC on 20/02/2010. The highest amounts of precipitation in mountain areas happened in this period. In Funchal, however, the highest amounts have already happened between 9 and 10 UTC, so not directly related to the MCS but to precipitation already happening within the very warm and moist air mass, namely in the lowest layers of the troposphere. The strong convective nature of this event was additionally enhanced by orography, producing a devastating flash flood from the mountain down to the city of Funchal, causing 42 casualties and around 1000 million euros of costs.
Virtually all flash floods are produced by MCSs,(Doswell et al, 1996)