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WEATHER

HEATWAVE: Italy puts 17 cities on red warning over holiday weekend

From Bologna to Palermo, Italy has issued a weather warning for cities across the country as a relentless heatwave continues to drive temperatures to 40 degrees C and beyond.

HEATWAVE: Italy puts 17 cities on red warning over holiday weekend
Rome is one of the cities on maximum heat warning this weekend. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Fifteen cities are at risk of extreme heat on Friday, according to the Ministry of Health’s latest warning: Bari, Bologna, Bolzano, Brescia, Cagliari, Campobasso, Florence, Frosinone, Latina, Palermo, Perugia, Rieti, Rome, Trieste and Viterbo.

Naples and Ancona have also been placed at Level 3 from Saturday – the government’s maximum risk rating for dangerous heat.

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Photo by Giovanni ISOLINO / AFP

While Cagliari in Sardinia will pass down to Level 1 from tomorrow, red warnings will remain in place for every other city on the list until at least Sunday, Italy’s Ferragosto public holiday.

A Level 3 warning means “emergency conditions … with possible negative effects on the health of active and healthy people”, according to the Health Ministry. 

In the midst of an anticyclone nicknamed “Lucifer”, several parts of Italy are reporting temperatures above the seasonal average, compounded in some cases by humidity.

Florence is forecasting highs of 38 degrees C on Friday, rising to 39 on Saturday and 40 on Sunday, while temperatures are set to hover in the high 30s in Rome and Bologna.

The heat in Sicily is threatening to break European records, with a blistering 48.8 degrees C reported near Syracuse on Wednesday. If Italy’s national weather service confirms the measurement, it will be the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe. 

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Sicily in particular, but also the whole of central and southern Italy and part of northern Italy, is affected by a current of hot air from the Sahara that has caused temperatures to soar.

The heatwave has left the hottest regions at heightened risk of wildfires, especially Sicily and Calabria.

At least four people have died in fires that have swept the peninsula in recent weeks, including three in the Reggio Calabria area who died while trying to save livestock and olive groves.

Italian firefighters continue to carry out hundreds of missions each day as they battle to contain a wildfire season even more destructive than previous years.

Although Italy is no stranger to intense heat, experts say global warming is making heatwaves more frequent and more dangerous.

The Mediterranean has been singled out as a “climate change hotspot”, with increasing temperatures and aridity lengthening fire seasons and doubling the areas potentially burnt, according to a draft UN assessment seen by AFP.

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WEATHER

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

Blizzards in Denmark this week have resulted in the greatest depth of snow measured in the country for 13 years.

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

A half-metre of snow, measured at Hald near East Jutland town Randers, is the deepest to have occurred in Denmark since January 2011, national meteorological agency DMI said.

The measurement was taken by the weather agency at 8am on Thursday.

Around 20-30 centimetres of snow was on the ground across most of northern and eastern Jutland by Thursday, as blizzards peaked resulting in significant disruptions to traffic and transport.

A much greater volume of snow fell in 2011, however, when over 100 centimetres fell on Baltic Sea island Bornholm during a post-Christmas blizzard, which saw as much as 135 centimetres on Bornholm at the end of December 2010.

READ ALSO: Denmark’s January storms could be fourth extreme weather event in three months

With snowfall at its heaviest for over a decade, Wednesday saw a new rainfall record. The 59 millimetres which fell at Svendborg on the island of Funen was the most for a January day in Denmark since 1886. Some 9 weather stations across Funen and Bornholm measured over 50cm of rain.

DMI said that the severe weather now looks to have peaked.

“We do not expect any more weather records to be set in the next 24 hours. But we are looking at some very cold upcoming days,” DMI meteorologist and press spokesperson Herdis Damberg told news wire Ritzau.

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