October in progress: stable and sunny weekend across most of Italy

The first weekend of October will be stable and sunny across most of Italy, thanks to the persistence of a strong high-pressure system over the Mediterranean. Weather conditions will feature clear or partly cloudy skies in the Central-South, with a few more clouds in the North. Light rain is possible only in the central-western Alps and locally in the inland areas of Sardinia and Sicily, but these will be isolated and weak phenomena.

Temperatures will remain high for the period, peaking at 29°C in Sardinia and low Tuscany, with values between 27°C and 28°C in the Po Valley, along the Tyrrhenian coast, and in western Sicily. The high-pressure system, with surface highs around 1035 hPa, extends from the central-western Mediterranean to northeastern Europe, ensuring atmospheric stability that rules out significant precipitation for the weekend.

The current weather situation is dominated by a persistent anticyclone, an area of high pressure that brings stable and sunny weather, which has been stationed over the Mediterranean and northeastern Europe for days. This phenomenon, typical of the autumn period and known as the "Ottobrata," occurs when warm and stable air masses settle over Italy, delaying the arrival of typical autumn bad weather and maintaining unusually mild temperatures for the season.

The high pressure acts as a veritable "wall" that blocks the entry of Atlantic disturbances, the cloud systems that bring rain and normally begin to affect the Peninsula at this time. In recent days, a disturbance attempted to approach from the west, but encountered resistance precisely from this anticyclone, managing to bring only clouds and isolated light rain to the westernmost regions. The current configuration, with pressure maxima so high, is particularly stable and makes any significant change difficult in the short term, prolonging the meteorological summer.