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HEATWAVE

Italy braces for first summer heatwave with highs of up to 40C

The Italian health ministry issued alerts for extreme heat in cities including Rome and Perugia this week as the first heatwave of the summer began.

Published: 19 June 2024 11:13 CEST

Italy braces for first summer heatwave with highs of up to 40C

Tourists shelter from the sun in Rome's Piazza del Popolo. The capital was set to see soaring temperatures this week as Italy's first heatwave of the year arrives. (Photo by Tiziana FABI / AFP)

Forecasters said the incoming heatwave, driven by an African anticyclone, was set to push temperatures above 40°C in some parts of Italy by the end of this week.

The health ministry issued a medium-level amber alert for heat in Perugia on Wednesday, June 18th, while a further 14 cities including Rome, Bologna, Florence, Naples and Palermo were placed under a lower-level yellow alert.

The amber alert was extended to 11 cities as the heat was set to intensify on Thursday, June 19th: Rome, Ancona, Bologna, Bolzano, Campobasso, Frosinone, Latina, Palermo, Pescara and Rieti. Perugia was placed on the highest-level red alert.

By Friday, eight red alerts were in place for Ancona, Campobasso, Frosinone, Latina, Perugia, Palermo, Rome and Rieti, with most other parts of the country under lower-level amber or yellow alerts.

All parts of southern and central Italy were expected to see soaring temperatures by the end of the week, with highs of around 41°C forecast in parts of Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia.

On Wednesday, the hottest part of the country was Foggia, in Puglia, with highs of 40°C, according to forecasters from Italian weather website IlMeteo.it. The southern provinces of Caltanissetta, Matera, Nuoro, Syracuse and Taranto were all expected to see highs of 38-39°C.

In Rome, temperatures were expected to reach 40°C on Thursday according to Italy’s national weather service.

Milan was also under a yellow heat warning from Thursday, with temperatures of around 30°C with high humidity, and night-time temperatures in the city forecast to remain around a sticky 23°C.

Milder conditions were expected in the north-east of the country, where early summer has so far been marked by stormy conditions and cooler than average temperatures.

The highest-level red alert means weather conditions may be harmful to the health of the general population, while medium-level warnings indicate conditions that may pose a risk to the elderly, sick or very young.

The health ministry recommends avoiding outdoor activity and exposure to the sun in the middle of the day.

Temperatures were expected to begin to fall over the weekend, with rain forecast as the heat breaks in many parts of the country on Sunday.

Above-average temperatures were likely again this summer across Italy and much of Europe, according to the latest mid-range forecasts.

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Elsewhere in Switzerland, a man was found dead in a hotel in Saas-Grund in the southwest canton of Valais, police said, adding that he was probably taken by surprise by a sudden rapid rise in floodwater.

Images published in the online publication 20minuten showed parts of the town covered in a thick layer of mud and rocks.

Another man is also missing in Valais, police said.

In France, three people in their 70s and 80s died in the northeastern Aube region on Saturday when a falling tree crushed the car they were travelling in, the local authority told AFP.

A fourth passenger was in critical care, it added.

Switzerland’s civil security services said “several hundred” people were evacuated in the southern canton of Valais and roads closed after the Rhone and its tributaries overflowed in different locations.

The situation in Valais was “under control” Sunday, Frederic Favre, the official responsible for civil security, told a press conference, but he warned that it would remain “fragile” for the next several days.

Emergency services were assessing the best way to evacuate 300 people who had arrived for a football tournament in the mountain town of Peccia, while almost 70 more were being evacuated from a holiday camp in the village of Mogno.

The poor weather was making rescue work particularly difficult, police had said earlier, with several valleys in the southern cantons of Ticino and Valais near the border with Italy, inaccessible and cut off from the electricity network.

In Ticino, some 400 people — including 40 children from a holiday camp — had to be evacuated from risk areas and taken to civil protection centres.

The federal alert system also said part of the canton was without drinking water.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis, who is from Ticino, said the repeated disasters “have touched us deeply”.

It’s the worst flooding experienced in the canton since 2000 when 13 people were killed in a mudslide which destroyed the village of Gondo.

Scientists say climate change driven by human activity is increasing the severity, frequency and length of extreme weather events such as floods and storms.

Italy flooding

In northern Italy, Piedmont and the Aosta Valley also suffered flooding and mudslides, though no deaths were reported.

Firefighters in Piedmont announced Sunday morning that they had carried out 80 operations to rescue people in difficulty.

A mudslide temporarily blocked a regional road to the ski resort of Cervinia in the Aosta Valley, a semi-autonomous region located along the border with France and Switzerland.

A river which burst its banks caused significant damage to the centre of the town where several streets were flooded.

A mudslide blocked access to Cogne, a village of 1,300 people in the Aosta Valley, where 90 millimetres of rainfall was recorded in a six-hour period on Saturday.

At the European football championships in Germany, a match between Germany and Denmark Saturday evening was interrupted for almost half an hour because of heavy rain and lighting.

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