PALERMO, Sicily (CN) — Italy on Tuesday was the picture of the vagaries of the wild El Niño weather cycle, with freakish summertime ice, hail, wind and rain storms pummeling the North while the South was at a breaking point after a two-week-long heat wave and rash of wildfires. Several deaths were reported.
On Monday night, large areas around Palermo, the capital of Sicily, burst into flames as temperatures swelled past 47 degrees Celsius (116.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and a scirocco, a strong, hot southern wind from the Sahara, worsened conditions. Palermo recorded its hottest day on Monday since 1791, as reported by the Giornale di Sicilia. On social media, people reported heat that soared to 122 F.
At the same time, 550 miles to the north, Milan and other parts of the Po river valley were clobbered by torrential rains, ice storms, tornado-like blasts of wind and flooding. Videos showed towns submerged in flood waters carrying ice chunks. Hail the size of golf balls and apples thrashed cars, windows and roofs, causing extensive damage. Floods and downed trees brought Milan to its knees and stopped train travel in the neighboring Veneto region.
Hail and rain storms have been hitting the north for the past two weeks, all part of an unseasonably chilly summer taking place in northern Europe. In May, parts of Emilia-Romagna and Marche, regions south of Lombardy, were devastated by historic and deadly river flooding spawned from a powerful subtropical storm. At least nine people drowned in those floods.
This week of freakish summer weather has turned deadly too.
A 16-year-old girl scout was killed overnight in Brescia when a tree fell on her tent; the day before, a man was killed by a falling tree. Three people were killed Tuesday in Palermo's fires, according to the Giornale di Sicilia.
But relief is on its way as the cooler northern front pummeling Milan was moving southward and slowly pushing away this torrid southern front that has left Sicily under clouds of wildfires.
By Wednesday, temperatures in Sicily are forecast to drop by 10 degrees Fahrenheit or more and remain stable for the next two weeks.
Lt. Col. Guido Guidi, a meteorologist with Aeronautica Militare, Italy's national weather service within the air force, said the country's turbulent weather was the result of the cool air mass clashing with the hot air mass.
“What's been happening these past few hours is that these two air masses are moving down” the peninsula and the cooler mass is dissipating the heat wave, he said, speaking on RAI, Italy's national broadcaster.
As the cool front moves southward, it is expected to spawn more storms in the central part of the country on Tuesday, but Guidi said overall the picture is looking up because the northern front will bring more stable and much-needed cooler weather to the entire country.
“Finally, then, we will see an end to this heat wave,” he said. “Temperatures are expected to go down quickly, starting even today.”
Palermo and its surrounding province were the epicenter of a spate of fires that broke out Monday and Tuesday across Sicily, including in the provinces of Trapani, Siracusa, Enna and Messina, the Giornale di Sicilia reported. Major fires were reported elsewhere in southern Italy, including in Puglia where a large beach fire erupted in Lecce province. Italy's national government was prepared to announce a state of emergency, ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported.
The Palermo airport was closed Tuesday morning due to nearby wildfires; flights resumed in the afternoon. But fires continued to interrupt road travel on parts of the island and threatened many homes.
The fires spread quickly due to the strong scirocco winds that have been clawing at the island for about three days. By Tuesday afternoon, fires had damaged the grounds of the Doric temple at Segesta in Trapani and charred pleasure spots around Palermo, including Capo Gallo, Monreale, Mondello and Cefalù. Tourists were evacuated from San Vito lo Capo, a panoramic headland at the northwestern corner of the island about an hour by car from Palermo.
Summertime fires in Sicily are a constant danger and also common. All too often, Sicilian and Italian authorities say, wildfires are set by arsonists and criminal groups intent on profiting from the blazes or simply because they like to carry out acts of pyromania. Criminals and pyromaniacs take advantage of scirocco winds to turn small fires into blazes, authorities say.
Over the weekend, dangerous wildfires also burst out on the Greek islands of Rhodes and Corfu. Fires in Greece continued to rage Tuesday, forcing tens of thousands of tourists and residents to evacuate. An airplane fighting fires on the island of Evia crashed, killing two, according to media reports. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece was “at war” with the fires. Mitsotakis came under intense criticism in 2019 for his government's poor handling of devastating fires on the islands of Evia and Crete.
Across the Mediterranean, wildires also broke out in Algeria, killing at least 34 people, according to media reports. Tunisia was preparing for the fires to spread across the border.
In recent weeks, Europe has been split in two with the North experiencing unseasonably wet and cool weather while the South has been broiling in a massive heat trough extending from Africa through southern Europe to Central Asia and the Far East.
Much of this extreme weather can be explained by the arrival of El Niño this spring. It is a global weather phenomenon that originates in the Pacific Ocean. These cycles typically bring hotter and more unpredictable weather, such as heavy rainstorms, droughts, tornadoes and blizzards.
Combining El Niño with the global increase in temperatures caused by human carbon emissions, this year and several more years to follow are likely to become the hottest and most unpredictable on record globally, according to climate scientists.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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