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Italy issues storm alert for ten regions as bad weather continues

Italy's Department for Civil Protection issued alerts covering half of the country on Tuesday as stormy conditions were forecast to continue in the coming days.

Published: 2 May 2023 16:27 CEST
Italy issues storm alert for ten regions as bad weather continues
Photo by Marco BERTORELLO / AFP

After traditional May Day picnics were cancelled amid wet and windy weather sweeping Italy on Monday, stormy conditions were forecast to continue throughout the next few days in many southern and central parts of the country.

Italy’s Department for Civil Protection on Tuesday issued a medium-level amber alert for the region of Emilia Romagna, which is set to experience exceptionally heavy rainfall, while the following nine regions were placed on a lower-level yellow alert: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, Lazio, Molise, Sicily, Puglia and Tuscany.

“An area of low pressure moving towards the southern Tyrrhenian Sea will cause widespread and persistent rainfall over Emilia-Romagna,” the Department for Civil Protection said in its weather alert issued on Tuesday, while intermittent downpours or thunderstorms could be expected “over most of the southern regions, in particular over Calabria and eastern Sicily,” it added.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: Italy records ‘five times’ more extreme weather events in ten years

Torrential rain and strong winds were forecast throughout Tuesday and into Wednesday, with hailstones and thunderstorms expected in some areas.

Weather conditions improved on Tuesday in most parts of northern Italy following a rainy and unseasonably cool start to the week.

Strong winds overnight blew down a large tree that crashed into a parked car in Genoa, Liguria, reported Italy’s Ansa news agency.

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WEATHER

IN PICTURES: ‘Exceptional’ Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

An "exceptional" dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent's climate monitor said on Monday, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime.

Published: 8 April 2024 14:15 CEST
IN PICTURES: 'Exceptional' Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said the latest plume, the third of its kind in recent weeks, was bringing hazy conditions to southern Europe and would sweep northward as far as Scandinavia.

Mark Parrington, senior scientist at Copernicus, said the latest event was related to a weather pattern that has brought warmer weather to parts of Europe in recent days.

“While it is not unusual for Saharan dust plumes to reach Europe, there has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of such episodes in recent years, which could be potentially attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation patterns,” he said.

This latest episode has caused air quality to deteriorate in several countries, Copernicus said.

The European Union’s safe threshold for concentrations of PM10 — coarser particles like sand and dust that that can irritate the nose and throat — has already been exceeded in some locations.

A picture taken on April 8, 2024 shows a rapeseed field under thick sand dust blown in from the Sahara, giving the sky a yellowish appearance near Daillens, western Switzerland. – An “exceptional” dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent’s climate monitor said, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

The worst affected was the Iberian Peninsula in Spain but lesser air pollution spikes were also recorded in parts of Switzerland, France and Germany.

READ ALSO:

Local authorities in southeastern and southern France announced that the air pollution threshold was breached on Saturday.

They advised residents to avoid intense physical activity, particularly those with heart or respiratory problems.

The dust outbreak was expected to reach Sweden, Finland and northwest Russia before ending on Tuesday with a shift in weather patterns, Copernicus said.

The Sahara emits between 60 and 200 million tonnes of fine dust every year, which can travel thousands of kilometres (miles), carried by winds and certain meteorological conditions.

The Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa saw just 12 days within a 90-day period from December to February where skies were free of Saharan dust, the local weather agency Aemet had reported.

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