Locked in the house with a great cold outside. This sentence briefly summarizes the Christmas of the Italians, characterized not only by the lockdown but also by a sudden weather change: after the relatively mild and sunny weather of the last few days, the famous "Arctic sabre" on our country arrives on December 25th. It starts from the North-East on Christmas day, to then reach the rest of Italy on Santo Stefano: the perturbation of polar origin will lower temperatures by 10-12 degrees, with snowfall even at low altitudes.
The Civil Defense has issued for Saturday 26 December, a yellow alert in 11 regions: Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Umbria, Lazio, Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily.
In fact, as well as getting colder, the weather will also be bad, bringing abundant rainfall almost everywhere, whether it's snow or rain: at Christmas, as mentioned, only the North-East (Friuli, with strong winds from Bora, Veneto and Trentino Alto Adige). in these regions temperatures, especially the minimums, will drop well below zero. Then the bad weather will move to the Centre, where the icy winds will cause the level of snowfall to drop, with the flakes going as far as the low hills of Abruzzo, Molise and Northern Puglia. On the evening of Boxing Day the cold will arrive even in Sicily. On the other hand, the sun will return to the North on Saturday and the first tranche of bad weather will not last long in the South as well, with clearing up already on Sunday the 27th.
Starting from Sunday evening and especially from Monday 28 December, however, another disturbance will arrive that will bring copious snow this time rather in the Northwest, even in the lowlands, and very abundant in the Alps. The weather will tend to progressively worsen with probable storms in Emilia, Tuscany and Triveneto, then also in Lazio. In short, the second wave will involve above all, if not almost exclusively, the Center-North: drier, this time, the South, where there will basically be sun and it won't even be too cold, according to the forecasts available so far.
Updated Dec 26th at 08:46am
