It was a scorchingly hot Friday across much of Italy, with record temperatures that reached 46 degrees, but at the same time mega hailstorms, tornadoes and rain damaged the artistic heritage in Cremona and the crops in the Brescia area, as well as hundreds of cars in various northern cities. Record temperatures were recorded in Sardinia (46 degrees) where the sea touched 29 degrees, in Sicily with 45 degrees, but also in Rome 41 degrees were recorded, 44 in Cosentino, 42 in Abruzzo, 40 in Florence and tropical nights almost everywhere, with peaks of 31 degrees in various locations in Umbria and Sardinia.
The heat fueled the fires, which were particularly serious on Mount Morrone, in Abruzzo, which had been hit by flames for days, which required the use of over 100 ground operators and three helicopters to put out the fires. High flames also in a forest in Ogliastra: despite the intervention of the Canadair, they reached the gates of Arzana and it was necessary to evacuate over a hundred people. A gardener died on Thursday afternoon from an illness while he was working to restore the paving of the green area in a private home in the province of Bologna, probably due to high temperatures. At the same time, a tornado hit Cremona in the afternoon: the Cathedral and the town hall were damaged; the roof of a spire of the cathedral and the roof of the civic tower of the town hall collapsed, the only remaining evidence of the oldest town hall, in whose place the current one was built in 1206.
The violent hailstorms and rain then uprooted several trees and damaged hundreds of cars in the Lombard town. Violent hailstorms also affected the province of Brescia and the Veronese area, causing damage to agriculture and in particular to grape crops. In the afternoon hailstones the size of tennis balls hit the eastern part of Lower Piacentina, concentrating on the town of Castelsangiovanni, on the border with the province of Pavia. In Val di Fassa around 800 hikers were assisted and accompanied down to the valley during the afternoon after the ski lifts stopped due to bad weather. Strong winds caused the roof of a school in the Belluno area to be blown off.
On the heat front, a slight improvement is expected over the weekend. Today, according to the Ministry of Health's bulletin on heat waves, there are 9 red stickers, i.e. with the maximum level of heat risk: Bari, Cagliari, Campobasso, Catania, Latina, Messina, Palermo, Reggio Calabria and Rome. Decreasing on Saturday: 6 of the 27 cities monitored will be in red: Bari, Catania, Messina, Palermo, Reggio Calabria and Rome.
And on Sunday they will be further reduced to 4 urban centers: Catania, Messina, Palermo and Reggio Calabria. There has also been a clear decline in orange stickers (risk only for the most fragile), today 11: Ancona, Bologna, Bolzano, Civitavecchia, Florence, Frosinone, Naples, Perugia, Pescara, Rieti and Viterbo. Tomorrow there will only be 3 orange ones (Civitavecchia, Perugia and Viterbo) while on Sunday they will disappear. On Sunday, it seems that the heat will be put behind us in a good part of the country: 16 green badges (no heat risk for the population), compared to 7 yellow ones (pre-alert status for a possible heat wave) in Bari, Campobasso, Civitavecchia, Latina, Naples, Perugia and Rome.
