The bad weather arrived earlier than expected in Genoa and Tigullio where several interventions by the firefighters were recorded. Arpal has issued an orange warning for thunderstorms (the maximum level for this type of weather event) from 3am to 3pm tomorrow in the eastern center of Liguria. It continues with a yellow alert until 5pm tomorrow, an alert which will be extended to western Liguria from 3pm today until 3pm tomorrow 21 August.
In one hour, 103 millimeters of rain were recorded in Chiavari. The Municipality of Lavagna, due to the flooding affecting the underpasses of via Colombo, via Previati and via Eraldo Fico, invited citizens to pay maximum attention.
The area most "wet" by these first storms was precisely the one between Chiavari, Lavagna and the related hinterland. In the underpass in via Nino Bixio in Chiavari, the Fire Brigade rescued a person who was stuck inside his van.
Throughout the morning several storm cells developed within a line of instability that crossed Liguria. These were not very extensive but particularly intense phenomena, which originated in the sea and moved inland to end causing localized flooding.
The Freccia Bianca train 8601 which left Genoa and headed for Rome had to stop at the Riva Trigoso station, in Tigullio, due to a fault caused by lightning. Railway traffic was slowed down, after the stop at 9am, due to a fault on the line in Genova Brignole with delays of up to 80 minutes. Trains along the Genoa-Ventimiglia line are suspended. Due to bad weather at Genoa airport, a flight coming from Bucharest at 12.10 was diverted to Pisa.
The possibility of waterspouts is expected along the coast. A new disturbed passage is expected between today's night and tomorrow's late morning, this time more organized and capable of affecting the entire region.
The Civil Protection "had no particularly critical signals. In Chiavari there were specific floods and all in all 200 mm of water were absorbed quite well by the waterways, less well by the system of manholes and small tributaries. But the issue is the repetitiveness of the phenomena in the next 24 hours. For this reason the alert has been raised, from yellow to orange which is the maximum alert level for these phenomena", he said the regional councilor Giacomo Giampedrone.
"If the force currently in play tomorrow were to converge on the territory already affected today the situation would become complex", explained Giampedrone. "Hence the raising of the alert. On the other hand, the very high sea temperature and 40 days of high pressure are explosive ingredients when cold fronts arrive."
Tomorrow, in addition to the rain, the intense lightning (today around 40 thousand lightning strikes fell on Liguria in a matter of hours) we also expect an intense storm and gale force winds as well as downburst phenomena which for now, explained Giampedrone, "have remained at sea".
In Liguria the alert is for scattered showers and thunderstorms, locally intense. Small or medium sized hailstorms possible. Arpal has issued an orange warning for thunderstorms (the maximum level for this type of weather event) from 3am to 3pm tomorrow in the eastern center of Liguria. Very intense and more persistent rainfall is also expected, especially in the central-east and upper Tuscany. Sudden strong gusts of wind exceeding 80 km/h are also expected.
