Italy faces the peak of the heat wave, 16 cities on red alert
Very high temperatures are expected from north to south of Italy this Friday, the hottest day of the heatwave episode. This anomaly in the level of temperatures should last until the beginning of August when fires are raging in certain regions.
The peak of heat at its peak. Italy is facing the hottest day of its heatwave episode on Friday July 22. Very high temperatures are expected from north to south of the peninsula, with 16 cities on red alert.
Milan, the capital of Lombardy, should touch the 40 °C while peaks of 39 °C are expected in Bologna and Rome. On Thursday, the city of Pavia, in the north of the peninsula, broke its temperature record with 39.6 °C.
Italy is “about to reach the maximum power of the African anticyclone Apocalypse4800. The figure of 4 800 explains the situation very well (…) the thermometer drops below zero degrees only at altitudes above 4 800 meters”underlines the specialized site ilmeteo.it.
And even after the passage of this new heat wave, no respite is expected. “For three consecutive months, May, June and July, the climatic anomaly proved, with temperatures at the national level at least two-three degrees above the seasonal average”notes ilmeteo.it, adding that this anomaly in the level of temperatures should last until the beginning of August.
At the same time, some regions are ravaged by fires. Firefighters still carried out dozens of interventions on Thursday. The most important fire is in Tuscany, near Massarosa, where 860 hectares have already burned and a thousand people had to be evacuated. The origin of the disaster could be criminal and the prosecutor’s office in Lucca has opened an investigation.
According to the specialized European monitoring service Copernicus, 27 571 hectares have already been devoured by flames in Italy in 2022, compared to 39 904 in France, 199 651 in Spain, 149 324 in Romania and 48 106 hectares in Portugal.
The forest fires that have raged in Europe in recent weeks have already affected more area than in the whole of 2021. In the 27 countries of the European Union, they have ravaged a total of 517 881 hectares since the beginning of the year, according to figures dating from July 16.