Bad weather lashes the South: cloudbursts, overflowing rivers, and sinkholes.

Bad weather continues to rage across Southern Italy, causing damage and disruption in several regions. Overnight, a violent storm hit the island of Lipari in the Aeolian Islands, causing the Ponte and Valle streams to overflow. Mud and debris flooded streets and homes, with dozens of houses inundated and cars stuck in the mud at the port of Sottomonastero. Firefighters intervened to rescue motorists.

In Naples, in the Materdei area, a car fell into a sinkhole that opened on the road, fortunately without consequences for the driver. Critical situations are also reported in Calabria, while in Bari, the crypt of the Basilica of San Nicola flooded. The mayors of the municipalities of Anzio and Nettuno in Lazio, after yesterday's downpour that turned streets into rivers, will ask the Region to declare a state of emergency.

The current wave of bad weather hitting Southern Italy constitutes the thermodynamic response to the arrival of the first structured Atlantic disturbance of the autumn season. The situation began with the arrival of this disturbance, which established a phase of marked instability over the national territory.

The triggering cause of the intense rainfall is the presence of a low-pressure minimum positioned over the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. This system channels warm and highly humid air from North Africa (the Algerian-Tunisian sector) towards the South, lower Lazio, and the central Adriatic, through a pre-frontal flow channel called a Warm Conveyor Belt. The precipitation is falling on ground already saturated with water due to the rains of previous days, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides. The disturbance is forecast to move towards Greece by Monday, making way for more stable conditions.