FLORENCE, ITALY – Tuscany and entire Italy continues to feel the heat of an African anticyclone that has sent temperatures soaring to nearly 40 degrees across the country and the islands, with experts on Thursday July 16, 2015, predicting the next couple of days to be the hottest of July.
Italy’s health ministry put the heat risk level to its highest, level 3-red, for 14 cities across the peninsula on Thursday, growing to 22 cities on Saturday. The mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, launched a massive series of pre-recorded phone calls to all citizens to invite them to take every precaution.
Although temperatures topped out at 39 on Wednesday, the level of perceived heat was much higher, as much as 47 degrees in Tuscany, according to a bulletin from the region’s Meteorological Laboratory, which said, “We’re expecting a boiling weekend”.
The heat is taking its toll on agriculture as well, with cows under stress from the high temperatures drinking nearly double their daily intake of water, and a loss so far of 50 million litres of Italian milk due to the heat wave, 20 million in Lombardy alone. Weather experts expect the heat to subside a bit at the beginning of next week, when cooler air from the north will see temperatures drop a few degrees, only to rise again in the days to follow.
Photo: courtesy by Martina Fontani via Facebook