Rain, hail, lightning, snow, plunging temperatures; these are just some of the delights in store over the next few days leading up to New Year’s Eve, according to the brutally factual forecast put out today by the Portuguese Institute of Ocean and Atmosphere.

According to the IPMA, between December 27th and January 1st 'weather conditions in continental Portugal will be affected by a disturbed westerly air flow which is expected to bring successive fronts, with alternating masses of tropical and then polar air.’

The wreckage of three shanty town dwellings in Faro, destroyed by fire on Monday 16th of December, are to be cleared away to allow space for an organic vegetable garden.

Nine people were made homeless after the blaze, though to have been caused by the ignition of a gas bottle.

Portugal’s Tax Authority is working on a computer programme that will assign a unique number to each receipt issued in a scheme to offer the public lottery style prizes for registering their purchases.

The collaboration with the Santa Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa involves developing the computer programme to assign a number to each invoice issued from January 1st, and then a way of holding a monthly draw.

A body was found on Thursday in Fonte da Telha, Sesimbra area, by a searcher who said that “it is probably the missing lad," the young man who was part of the group of seven students, six of whom were swept to their death by a wave at Praia do Meco on December 15th.

The body was found mid-morning at the Fonte da Telha beach and the authorities were alerted.

Fifteen districts in Portugal are on alert due to wind, rain, snow and angry seas.
 
Portugal’s weather institute, the IPMA, has posted a red alert along the shoreline of Lisbon and Leiria districts as waves crash into the mainland.

The Socialist party says that the fiscal consolidation that the country has been subject to over the past year clearly has been insufficient and that 2014 will be a year "with more cuts and more austerity."

According to the November figures released on Monday, between January and November this year Portugal’s deficit reached an impressive €7.7573 billion despite all the cuts, tax increases and general belt-tightening.

Masked and gloved robbers who threatened their victims with a gun and a knife have been caught by the Loulé GNR.

In an eight hour rampage two men, masked and armed with a handgun and a knife, robbed a petrol station in Albufeira and later attempted to pull the same trick at the Pingo Doce in Quarteira.

Of 76 properties that were listed by the Treasury in its recent auction, only two have found buyers. Property with a list price of €5 million was on offer but the third such public auction was devoid of buyers.

This is the third auction of assets that the state has undertaken in two years, and the third time that the results have been below the lowest expectations.