Italy is officially in the grip of the great African heat. This summer is the first time it has happened, but it is immediately a red alert, especially in big cities but without distinction between North and South. The worst days, according to the most widespread weather forecasts, are precisely those of Friday 31st July and Saturday 1st August, with temperatures approaching 40 degrees, while from Sunday 2 August, at least in the North, temperatures will return to normal values, and at the beginning of next week there will be again the thunderstorms that characterized this first half of summer.
The Ministry of Health bulletin is clear: Saturday 1 August the Italian capitals with a red dot alert (level 3, i.e. "emergency conditions with possible negative effects on the health of healthy and active people and not only on subgroups at risk such as the elderly, very young children and people suffering from chronic diseases”) are 14, four more than the day before.
These are Bologna, Bolzano, Brescia, Campobasso, Florence, Frosinone, Latina, Perugia, Pescara, Rieti, Rome, Turin, Verona and Viterbo. "Only" orange dot for Milan. The situation on Sunday was a little less serious: it will still be very hot but with more normal temperatures, especially in the North. The red dot cities will still be 12: Milan even gets a yellow dot (lower alert level), the situation improves in Brescia, Bolzano, Turin and Verona but gets worse (from orange to red) in Palermo and Ancona.
It will be decidedly better on Monday, with thunderstorms in the North that will drop temperatures by about ten degrees, even bringing them below the average for the season. Still hot, but much more bearable, in the Centre-South, where the maximum will be held on 30-31 degrees, therefore on absolutely normal values. From Tuesday, then, clouds and some thunderstorms will also move south.
