Italy faces a weekend divided between intense heat and the risk of bad weather. Today, Saturday 22 August, while high summer temperatures return to the South, with Bari and Palermo in the red for heat waves, rain and thunderstorms maintain the yellow alert in five regions: Lombardy, Molise, Campania, Puglia and Basilicata.
According to the heat wave bulletin, Bari and Palermo are the only two of the 27 cities monitored by the Ministry of Health to reach level 3 today, the maximum of the scale, a situation destined to continue tomorrow, Sunday 23 August. The red dot indicates conditions that may represent a health risk not only for the elderly, young children and people with chronic conditions, but also for healthy and active individuals.
The temperatures
In Palermo the regional civil protection forecasts maximum temperatures of up to 37 degrees for today, with a level 3 risk for heat waves. In Bari, the heat alert was also reported by the Puglia Region, which recalls the indications to limit the risks linked to high temperatures.
In the rest of the Centre-South the situation is less critical, but the heat remains to be monitored. Ancona, Campobasso, Catania, Latina, Messina, Naples, Pescara, Reggio Calabria and Rome are now in the yellow badge according to the heat wave bulletin.
The wave of bad weather
While the heat dominates in the South, a part of the country continues to deal with the consequences of the wave of bad weather that has hit the Centre-North in particular in the last few hours. For today, the Civil Protection has indicated a yellow alert for thunderstorms in various areas of Basilicata, Campania, Molise and Puglia, while in Lombardy the yellow alert remains for hydrogeological risk in various Alpine and pre-Alpine sectors.
Lombardy, storms and evacuations
It is precisely Lombardy that presents the heaviest picture after the storms of the last few hours. Landslides, floods, flooding and collapses have particularly affected the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Sondrio, forcing hundreds of people to temporarily abandon homes and accommodation facilities. In Val Brembana, over 200 guests of a campsite threatened by the flooding of a torrent and a landslide were also evacuated, while several towns in the Bergamo area remained isolated.
The Lombardy Region has announced that it will ask the Government to recognize the state of emergency for the damage caused by the exceptional wave of bad weather. The overall toll speaks of around 400 evacuees and numerous interventions due to landslides, floods and collapses.
The two faces of summer
After the most violent phase of the disturbances, a general improvement in weather conditions is expected over the weekend, but it will not yet be a complete truce: the possibility of isolated rain and thunderstorms will remain, while in the South the main problem will be the heat.
Thus, on the same weekend, Italy finds itself dealing with two opposite sides of summer: on the one hand the heat and red-hot temperatures of Bari and Palermo, on the other a territory still fragile after storms, landslides and floods, with five regions starting Saturday under yellow alert.
