Italy will put various cities on ‘red alert’ for extreme weather this week, with the country set to come close to breaking its record temperature, Metro News reports.
As the region bakes in a deadly heatwave, forecasters say the hot weather could reach 48°C in some areas, prompting the authorities to issue wildfire and health warnings.
It comes amid devastating wildfires in Greece, Turkey and other parts of the Mediterranean – and as scientists issued a landmark warning about the ‘code red’ scale of the climate crisis.
Four cities in Italy will be put on red alert on Tuesday and eight on Wednesday, the Italian agency Ansa reported.
It said locals forecasters predicted temperatures could reach 47-48°C in parts of southern Italy and on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia later this week.
By Wednesday, 13 cities including Milan, Florence and Bologna will be under ‘amber’ alerts.
Amber alerts mean signal that the weather ‘may have adverse effects on the health of the population, particularly in susceptible population subgroups’, while red alerts warn that those high risk conditions could remain for more than three days.
Meanwhile, rare summer flooding submerged Venice’s famed Piazza San Marco in up to a meter of water overnight on Sunday.
The high water incidents are caused by a combination of factors including rising sea levels, high tides and land subsidence, which has caused the ground level of the city to sink.
