Yellow alert from Civil Protection for thunderstorms in the South

The Department of Civil Protection has issued a yellow weather alert for Saturday, September 12. The notice concerns four regions of Southern Italy that will be affected by precipitation predominantly of a thunderstorm nature. Showers of rain and wind gusts, even of strong intensity, are expected.

The most probable and frequent phenomena, according to forecasts, will concentrate on Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Basilicata, Irpinia, Calabria, and Sicily, before subsiding by the end of the day. The Atlantic disturbance, which is crossing the country moving southeast, will cause this worsening, with possible hydrogeological and hydraulic criticalities in the affected areas.

The passage of the disturbance will also bring a significant temperature drop to the South, definitively ending the heatwave. Maximum temperatures will decrease in the South, Sicily, and the mid-Adriatic, with values mostly between 25 and 30 degrees.

The alert on Saturday, September 12, concludes the passage of the first Atlantic disturbance of September over Italy. This meteorological event originated from the arrival of a cooler air mass from northern Europe, which gradually replaced the hot air that had caused a persistent heatwave, especially in the South.

The mechanism generating the expected thunderstorms is the contrast between this cool air descending along the Adriatic and the still relatively warm marine waters of the Mediterranean, particularly in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. This thermal clash provides the energy needed to trigger thunderstorm cells, sometimes organized in lines, capable of dumping heavy rain in a short time.

Based on forecasts from high-resolution mathematical models, the Civil Protection periodically assesses these scenarios to issue warnings. The goal is to alert local civil protection systems so they can monitor the territory and manage any potential issues, such as flooding or landslide phenomena, triggered by intense, concentrated rainfall.