(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) Italy is expected to have its warmest holiday season in at least
50 years, according to meteorologists, more anomalous weather in a
year filled with unusual weather patterns, trend reports citing
xinhua .
According to Daniele Cat Berro from the Italian Meteorological
Society, a warm weather current from North Africa is hovering above
much of Italy, pushing temperatures to record highs.
All throughout central and southern Italy, temperatures are
expected to surpass 50-year highs. Daily high temperatures will
remain hotter than normal through the end of the new year, Cat
Berro said.
'This anticyclone phenomenon from North Africa is raising
temperatures to high levels,' Cat Berro told Xinhua.
'It's the same kind of influence we saw in the summer when
temperatures were above 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 degrees
Fahrenheit) except that now the tilt of the earth is greater and
the sun is lower and so the actual high temperatures are
lower.'
This year is on pace to be the hottest in Italy since record
keeping began in the early 1800s, following an unusually hot and
dry summer that left hundreds dead, set records across the country,
and slashed the country's overall agricultural output by as much as
a third.
Low rainfall left major river basins in northern and central
Italy dry, and the lack of rainfall combined with unseasonably high
temperatures caused a major glacier in northern Italy's Dolomites
range to collapse, killing 11 hikers.
The hot and dry summer then gave way to extreme weather in the
fall, including severe rain, flash flooding, strong winds, and
mudslides. The canal city of Venice was threatened by potential
flood waters and saved only due to the 'Mose' system of flood gates
that went into operation last year.
The European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) said with a month to
go in the year, Italy had already recorded five times more extreme
weather events than a decade ago.
According to Cat Berro, while it is difficult to tie any single
weather event to climate change, the frequency and severity of
weather events is tied to the changing global climate.
'Weather events that used to take place once in a decade now
take place every year, even multiple times per year,' Cat Berro
said. 'Things will not go back to the way they were before. We have
to get accustomed to this new reality and be prepared and
adapt.'