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CLIMATE

Storms in Italy: One dead as Sicily and Calabria on ‘red alert’

Italy’s Department for Civil Protection issued its most severe weather warning for parts of Sicily and Calabria as the south was battered by heavy storms and floods on Sunday and into Monday.

Published: 25 October 2021 17:01 CEST
Parts of Sicily and Calabria are under red alert as Italy’s south has been hit by severe storm and floods.
Parts of Sicily and Calabria are under red alert as Italy’s south has been hit by severe storm and floods. STRINGER / ANSA / AFP

The body of a 67-year-old man caught up in flash floods near the Sicilian town of Scordia was found by rescue workers on Sunday while his 54-year-old wife remained missing, reports the news agency Ansa.

The couple had reportedly attempted to flee the area in their car before getting swept away by the rising waters.

The website for Italy’s national fire department reported on Monday that its firefighters had carried out 580 rescues related to the floods in the space of 24 hours, conducting 400 rescue missions in Sicily and 180 in Calabria.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

The Department for Civil Protection issued the warning on Sunday evening, with the east of Sicily and the south of Calabria placed under red alert.

Other parts of both regions and a part of the neighbouring region of Basilicata have been placed under orange alert (heavy rainfall, landslide and flood risk), with other areas of Basilicata and much of the southeastern region of Puglia on yellow alert (localised heavy and potentially dangerous rainfall).

The department is responsible for predicting, preventing and managing emergency events across the country, and uses a green, yellow, orange and red graded colour coding system for weather safety reports.

Green signifies calm and stable conditions, while a red weather warning is issued only in the event of widespread, very intense and persistent conditions that pose a threat to public safety.

A red alert envisages a likelihood of extensive flooding, falling trees, and damage to buildings, infrastructure, and crops. It triggers the automatic closure of schools and the discretionary closure of public institutions in affected areas.

Schools were closed on Monday in the Sicilian cities of Catania and Syracuse and the provinces of Messina, Agrigento, and Enna, reports the Sicilian newspaper Giornale di Sicilia; with many also closed in the Calabrian provinces of Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia, according to the local news outlet LaCNews24.

On Monday the Il Meteo weather news site reported that the cyclone battering the south had increased in intensity and been upgraded to a Mediterranean hurricane, with the potential to reach windspeeds of up to 120 km/h.

The bad weather in the south is expected to last at least into the middle of the week, the site reports, with the centre-north of the country facing the possible threat of heavy storms over the coming weekend due to a developing weather disturbance in the Atlantic.

Earlier this month Italy saw historic levels of rainfall, with three national records broken in the space of a few hours in the northwest of the country on October 4th.

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WEATHER

Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Summer is finally here! Or least it is if you live in southern Norway, where a warm front coming up from Europe will bring t-shirt temperatures of 20C by Thursday, according to forecasts.

Published: 30 April 2024 08:42 CEST
Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Warm air from southern Europe will combine with a high pressure zone which will bring clear skies and sunshine, with summery weather coming towards the end of the week, Norway’s national weather forecaster Yr has reported. 

“Thursday and Friday especially will be nice,” Ingrid Villa, a meteorologist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, told the public broadcaster NRK. “Then we will probably get temperatures of over 20 degrees Celsius in some places.” 

Patches of 20C warmth are expected both in western Norway around Bergen and in Western Norway around Oslo, with the area around Tromsø expected to have slightly cooler weather, although Villa said that “it will absolutely be something like summer there too”. 

The warm sunny weather is, however, expected to pass northern Norway by, with grey overcast skies expected for much of this week. 

But if you think summer has come to Norway to stay, you risk disappointment as much cooler temperatures are expected next week.  

“There’s nothing unusual in getting an early taste of summer in April and the start of May, and then we can quickly go back to cooler more spring-like weather,” Villa said. 

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