Bad weather: orange alert in 4 southern regions, 6 others on yellow alert.

The Civil Protection Agency has issued new weather alerts for Saturday, October 10, with critical conditions in 10 Italian regions. Four southern regions—Calabria, Puglia, Sicily, and Campania—are under an orange alert due to the risk of heavy downpours, intense thunderstorms, and hydraulic and hydrogeological hazards.

The most affected areas include in Calabria the Ionian and Tyrrhenian slopes from north to south; in Sicily, most of the island, including the smaller islands; in Campania, the Naples area, the islands, the Vesuvian zone, and the Sorrento-Amalfi peninsula; in Puglia, Salento and the Lato and Lenne basins. Six other regions are under a yellow alert for the same risks.

The meteorological situation remains critical after days of bad weather, with the Atlantic disturbance continuing to bring intense precipitation to Central and Southern Italy over the weekend, while the North is expected to see improvement with the return of sunshine.

The current wave of severe weather hitting Italy is caused by the passage of the first well-organized Atlantic disturbance of the autumn season. This meteorological phenomenon began when a mass of cool air aloft from the Atlantic entered the Mediterranean, clashing with the milder, more humid air present at the surface following the summer.

The primary cause of the intensity of these events is the high temperature of the Mediterranean Sea, which accumulated excess heat during the summer months. This warm sea provides substantial amounts of moisture and heat to the atmosphere, fueling the development of organized thunderstorm systems, locally intense rainfall, and even tornadoes. The situation is further aggravated by the so-called Warm Conveyor Belt, a flow of warm and highly humid air moving from North Africa towards southern Italy.

The soil, already saturated from the rains of previous days, cannot absorb additional water, increasing the risk of landslides and floods. The disturbance will gradually move southeast over the weekend, then move away towards Eastern Europe on Sunday, leading to a return of stable and sunny conditions over most of the country.