A crazy summer, totally reckless and, in some ways, never really started. At the Stelvio Pass, at 2,757 meters above sea level, 10 centimeters of new snow fell. At the end of June. Something that hadn’t happened for years.
The bad weather is moving to the central south and weather experts describe what is happening as the so-called “cold drop” phenomenon, that is, a mass of cold air at high altitude that moves over Italy and brings conditions of widespread instability. Instability with which we are learning to live, especially in the North, where the weather changes with a speed that not even in the tropics, where the water bombs arrive every other day, where total humidity alternates with temperatures from the beginning of March . This is what will happen in these days: a significant temperature decrease is expected, which in some regions could exceed 10 degrees lower than current values.
«Italy, and the Mediterranean in general, are a climate hotspot where global warming is occurring at double the speed of the rest of the world» explains Mattia Gussoni, meteorologist at iLMeteo.it. For now, what we are experiencing is a schizophrenic climate that catches us unprepared and causes damage. Lots of damage. In Veneto the storms were so violent and the gusts of wind were so strong that they tore roofs off and caused landslides. In the province of Belluno there were two landslides which required hours of intervention to free the roadways. In Trieste (and this is the only positive news) the Bora blew so strongly that it swept away the layer of oily mucilage that had formed in the sea. In Asiago a torrent flooded. Disasters also occurred in Lombardy: the wind cleared the air of African sand but trees still fell in Milan and a tragedy was close to occurring on Lake Como. Throughout the night between Saturday and Sunday there were 12 search and rescue events coordinated by the Naval Vessels Unit of the Coast Guard, a recently inaugurated garrison, 45 boaters were rescued and assisted, including minors. Everyone was saved by the unmanageable waves and strong gusts, which exceeded 30 knots. Some of the rescued boats were stranded on the cliffs while others, at the mercy of the waves, risked ending up on the rocky coast. And while the North manages the storms, the South deals with fires. Italy in these hours once again seems divided in two with the northern regions suspended in an eternal spring and the southern ones plunged into the height of summer. Obviously the weather picture is about to change again. Central Italy is preparing to end up under water. The yellow alert is triggered in Lazio and in many regions. The cyclone will gradually move further south.
Today the bad weather will hit Emilia Romagna, but the strongest storms will form on Sardinia and the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Lazio, where we will have real stormy “monsters”. The recommendation of meteorologists and civil protection is: read the bulletins and respect the warnings.
Habit that is entering our lives more and more.