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WEATHER

Italy set to return to ‘normal’ summer heat in August

As Italy's heat and mugginess return to seasonal averages, meteorologists predict a comparatively cooler period as the calendar flips to August.

Italy set to return to 'normal' summer heat in August
A woman cools herself in a fountain near the Ara Pacis monument, in central Rome. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

Maximum temperatures across Italy are forecast to go back to the “normal” range in the first week of August, reported Italian news agency Ansa.

Temperatures in the south will remain below 40 degrees, while the north of the country will see maximum highs of 31 to 33 degrees, climatologist Luca Mercalli, President of the Italian Meteorological Society (Smi), told Ansa.

“Some days, it will even be cool,” he said.

The high-pressure system moving in from northern Africa, known as an anticyclone, which kept Italy under a heatwave for 15 days “has retreated to where it came from”, he added.

For now at least, “no further heatwaves are in sight by the first week of August”.

Weather website 3B Meteo also projected a break in the excessive heat for the beginning of the new month.

However, along with cooler temperatures due to colder fronts sweeping in over northern Europe, Italy can also expect instability and new thunderstorms, according to weather projections.

The beginning of the week may signal thunderstorms across the north, and are also expected in the second half.

READ ALSO: Scientists urge Italy’s media to improve climate change reporting

Central and southern regions may also be affected over the weekend.

For now, predictions were limited to the first week in August, as the climatologist stated that forecasts beyond seven to ten days are unreliable.

Italy has experienced extreme heat and violent storms at the end of July that left several people dead.

The higher frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and floods is linked to climate change, according to the climate expert.

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WEATHER

Mystery sonic boom rattles Italy’s Elba island

An unidentified sonic boom heard on the Italian island of Elba and in Corsica on Thursday may have been a meteorite, experts have said.

Mystery sonic boom rattles Italy’s Elba island

The town of Campo nell’Elba, on the Italian tourist island of Elba, 10 kilometres off Tuscany’s coast, said on its Facebook page that a nearby tracking station had “captured a seismic, acoustic event felt by everyone” at 4:30pm.

Corsican media reports said it was also felt on the island.

Tuscany’s president Eugenio Giani initially said it was an earthquake, before backtracking after Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) ruled it out.

The Italian Air Force told Giani it had nothing to do with the sonic boom.

“The type of event which caused the tremor, felt by many as an earthquake over the entire coast of Tuscany and in some inland areas, is currently unconfirmed,” Giani wrote on social media.

The region’s Geophysics Institute and the University of Florence said in a joint statement that whatever caused the boom was travelling at 400 miles per second.

“A meteorite entering the atmosphere seems the most likely and in line with the data registered”.

The Corriere della Sera daily quoted an unnamed person from Italy’s civil protection agency saying “the impact would have been registered by seismographs. The most likely hypothesis is still an airplane”.

It is not the first time mysterious sonic booms have been registered on Elba, the Corriere della Sera said. Similar events in 2012, 2016 and 2023 have yet to be explained, it said.

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