Twenty-four polar hours await the Centre-North. After the first whitening of the Immaculate a week ago, with abundant snowfalls even in the plains and in the big cities, the wave of Santa Lucia arrives: weak flakes are already falling in Florence and on the Ligurian Apennines and could reach the coastal area between Genoa and Imperia, but it is only a small advance of what will happen to the northern regions in the next few hours.
In fact, snow is forecast in Piedmont, Lombardy and Western Emilia as early as today's afternoon. The most intense snowfalls will occur between Thursday evening and Thursday night, but it will continue to snow until late Friday morning almost everywhere. In some areas of the Northwest, especially between Piedmont and Lombardy, rainfall could resume in the afternoon and reach hilly altitudes
The Santa Lucia snowfall will involve all the northern regions, with the exception of the Romagna area. Perturbation number 5 in December will subsequently also bring bad weather to the Centro-South with heavy rains in Liguria, Tuscany, Lazio, Campania and Umbria and accumulations of up to 60 mm.
In addition to the rainfall, the beginning of the weekend will also be accompanied by a drastic drop in temperatures especially in the North: today's early hours have already been the coldest in recent days, with the minimums in sharp decline especially in Trentino Alto-Adige : -17 in Dobbiaco, -19 in Predoi and -21 in Val di Vizze. The "warmest" place was Bolzano with -6. Then recorded -9 in Aosta, -3 in Milan, -5 in Turin, Bologna, Florence and Perugia, -2 in Rome and Bari, 1 degree in Alghero. In the afternoon the areas of the bottom of the Alpine valleys will still remain below zero. In Aosta the expected maximum will be -2 degrees and also in Bolzano the thermometer will remain at -1.
Over the weekend, however, milder Atlantic westerly currents will lead to a significant rise in temperatures (even 10 degrees more), except on the plains of the Northwest where, at least initially, cold air will remain trapped.
