Flickr photo of the day: Rain in Spain

Michael Clemmer

In this photo by Spanish photographer xelemendez, a spring rain shower bathes young grain fields in the Castile and León region of Spain. Located in the northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, its name comes from the two medieval kingdoms that ruled it and is the birthplace of Castilian Spanish, one of the five dialects spoken in Spain. (Basque, Aranese, Catalan and Galician being the others.)

Sitting high in Spain’s Meseta Central plateau and bordered by the mountains of Portugal, Cantabria and the Basque Country of Aragon (which block moisture coming from the Atlantic), Castile and León is a place of short hot summers, little rain and long cold winters. Today, thanks to modern irrigating techniques, it is a thriving agricultural area, producing some 15 percent of Spain’s primary economic sector.
