In the early hours of Friday, a cold front from northern Europe brought temperatures as low as -18 degrees Celsius to the eastern Alps, -14 degrees to Garfagnana, and -5 degrees to Milan, Turin, and the interior of Sicily.
Overnight, snow also fell at higher elevations in the south, and locals took pictures of Vesuvius with a dusting of snow on it.
Claudio Cassardo, a climatologist at the University of Turin, said, “Winter is coming, and temperatures will go back to normal.” But we’re not used to the cold and snow anymore.
While the north, particular, shivers in freezing temperatures and snow was predicted for many areas, even at lower altitudes, the central and southern parts were warned to expect heavy rain and storm weather from Friday through the weekend.
On Friday, parts of five southern Italian regions, including Basilicata and Calabria, got a lower-level storm alert from Italy’s Department for Civil Protection. Campania, on the other hand, got a medium-level amber storm alert, which meant there was a chance of hail and flash floods.
By Saturday, showers, strong winds, and thunderstorms are expected to spread further across the center-south and to the Adriatic coast. Temperatures are also expected to drop below zero again in the centre and north’s interior.
Forecasts showed that the next few days would be the warmest in the southeast region of Puglia and along southern coasts of Sicily and Calabria, where temperatures would stay between 8 and 10 degrees Celsius.
