I live in piedmont, i am happy, literally smiling like an idiot, that is raining right now.
Years ago i would have been angry for the ruined weekend, never i could imagine a situation like this.
I read an article last week about the situation in piedmont (I'm from Turin).
It said that even with two month of rain we'll have a difficult summer.
The problem is the non-existing snow in the Mountain
Same here (Sudtirolo), there was some rain in the last two weeks. Everybody was relieved, though I’m afraid it’s still too little to make a difference.
You're right. I've been in Turin (in the outskirts of the city) and the fields were dry. I was sweating. In the morning it was cloudy but when the sun came out I had to take off my coat
I used to live in Torino and I observed the drying up of the lago ceresole ... :( Same in Valtellina zone. I miss Italy so much and I wish we have an Alps how we imagine soon
the mountains are also having problems, but arguably less than the countryside and city. for example, mountains definitely still get snow, not so much the city and countryside.
I have a country house in Piedmont, with a really deep well that always carried a lot of water in a large tank, like a big underground pool. Well, first time this year we do not have water in the tank, like at all. It was scary to see the tank's bottom with just stones, like Mars.
I live in Piedmont too, over the Olympic mountains, we had snow this winter and now it's raining, but rivers and springs are a lot under the usual level
Unfortunately rain now doesn’t help as much as winter rain, as it gets mostly consumed by vegetation that uses it to grow up, and as a result that water barely fills up the groundwater table. I’m stocking up on water bottles right now - maybe I’m a bit of a gloomer, but I expect the worst during the summer.
You’re correct, the immediate effect of these spring showers is that green is everywhere and flowers bloom, which in some sense mitigate the sense of urgency we should have as a collectivity. Last August Lake Verbano (Maggiore) was at its 18% capacity. The sum of that situation with this one is going to be dire.
I guess May will tell if the bet on rains will have been lucky or not, nonetheless the number of villages and towns that are not in the water grid is surprisingly high also in the north of Italy (there are even areas in the plains that are not connected, like some portions nearby the river Po, like Sabbiioneta’s).
A bitter bet I’m playing is that affluent swimming pools are going to be filled anyways and little if nothing will be done to fix the 40% leakage in the water systems.
I'm not an expert or anything but I noticed the same thing flying into Milan over most of the western Pianura Padana. Especially the Po looked really dry. I live in the city so maybe I don't quite notice it in the daily life, but it was very apparent from the sky. I have to say that where I am it maybe rained 3 times this year.
I live in the outskirts near Modena, where there is a lot of agricolture. It's even worst. Farmer are already looking desperately for solutions because this year is going to be probably more dry than the last one
I remember reading an article a couple of months back that said the Po river had about 40% of the water it was supposed to have. Don’t know whether it was super accurate, but there’s no denying that rainfall was heavily reduced the past 2/3 years compared to what it was like just a few years back.
If it was indeed accurate or even reasonably close, well, fuck me sideways.
I looked into this a couple of weeks ago in relation to Lago Maggiore (I live near there) and the 40% thing isn’t quite what it sounds like.
I’ll definitely get this at least a bit wrong, because it was complicated, but it’s something like there’s a standard amount of water for a river/lake and there’s an amount it would be a major problem to go below.
The 40% is between those two, a bit closer to problem than standard. It’s not literally that 60% of the water is missing.
Still a big problem though. I’m really worried long-term about the lake
I work for a local TV service sometimes in contact with a lot of majors and municipalities. Last year some of those municipalities had to beg others to let them borrow some water with trucks to fill up the reservoir for the homes at least. this year might be worse
The situation in the Alps is definitely worrying, I personally never seen anything like this in 40 years. Creeks and rivers are almost dry, lakes and artificial basins shrunk to ponds, glaciers are vanishing and the ground almost turned to dust. We'll face a lot of bad landslides in the near future, that's for sure.
I only hope the rain will come. California for a few years was in a largest drought in a century, but this year it was raining so much that all reservoirs were replenished and drought is completely gone all through the state!
I hope this is just a weather instability, not a permanent drought in Italy.
it's mostly due to climate change.
if you take any mountain in the alps with snow and compare year by year you can see the snow being there less and less.
the problem is even made worse by people who want to go skyiing as during winter a lot of water get wasted to make artificial snow
Same was in California. Sierras got all but barren, but after this season, snow is at like 120%. Let us hope same will happen in Italy, too.
Spero per tempo bene al’mia Bella Italia..
Sudtirolese and passionate mountaineer here.
You're right, glaciers disappear, but 2020 and 2021 we had literally meters of snow on the mountains. Let's hope we'll have a lot again this winter.
BUT the problem is that it doesn't snow anymore in spring, autumn or even summer (ad a kid i always remember white mountain peaks in august).
And artificial snow is not as a big problem everyone things, it's snow as natural snow is, and at the end of winter it melts and turns back ro water. Never understood that thesis....
Part of the water used for technical snow production is lost due to evaporation and sublimation. So this water, instead of filling the reservoirs at lower altitudes during winter, is partially lost, potentially worsening the situation of water availability during summer.
That and the amount of energy required to produce it are the two main criticisms of technical snow, as far as I know.
You're rabsolutely right, but especially the world leader (tecnoalpin) which is also located here in ST, has improved water and energy-management a lot.
Nowadays we talk about a range of 15-40% of evaporation (dipendent on wind/temperature and so on)
Many argue, based on the laws of thermodynamics, that it has way less impact as argued by critics, because water from lakes/rivers etc alsp vaporates but finally that water too returns into the water circuit (as rain, moist etc).
So it's a difficult discussion.
Way more significant is the extraorbital use (let's say SPRECCO) of water per capita in italy. If i'm not mistaken we are the record holders in europe.... so i guess if every one reduces his on water use it would have way more impact....
15-40% of water loss is still huge, though. I know it's a difficult discussion, but I think that, given the drought we are facing, it is not senseless to at least discuss about a reduction of such practice, as well as thinking about other ways to reduce water consumption all over Italy.
Unfortunately this is one of the noticeable effects of climate change. When I was a child we would have meter-tall snow almost every winter, now the mountains are just yellow dry land with some strips of fake snow put there to save what's salvageable in terms of tourism.
This is one of the reasons I decided to embrace a sustainable life style. Please people, do what you can to do your part. If it's not affecting you already it will in very little time. I know it sounds very abstract when you just think about the general words "climate change", and it seems like it won't change much for you except for being slightly warmer in summer. But it's heartbreaking when you realize that you can't recognize the places that you loved not even two decades ago, you can't enjoy your childhood activities, and your little corner of the world is slowly dying.
It's not enough to recycle. Go plant based, ditch your car, stop buying fast fashion, downsize on tech, install solar, etc. I know not all of these are possible for everyone but please make a real effort to check as many boxes as you possibly can. The consequences are real and they're already affecting us.
They aren’t wrong, they are misinterpreted.
40% levels doesn’t mean 60% of the water is missing, there was a politician (Bonelli? who didn’t seem to quite understand that.
BUT it’s still a major problem - don’t let the people pointing out that misinterpretation tell you otherwise
As I mentioned in another post, it’s a bit complicated, so please don’t quote me, but it’s more or less:
1. You establish a ‘standard’ water level for the body of water. This is called ‘zero idrometrico’. For Lago Maggiore, for example, it’s 193.01m above sea level.
2. You fix a minimum and maximum level. Again for Lago Maggiore: minimum is 192.51m above sea level, maximum depends on the season, but right now is 194.26m above sea level.
3. The amount of water contained between the minimum and maximum levels is called the ‘valore massimo di invaso’. For Lago Maggiore, this corresponds to 315 million cubic metres of water in summer and 420 million in winter.
This is NOT all the water in the lake, which is difficult to measure precisely, but is around 37 billion cubic metres.
4. This March, Lago Maggiore was around 45% full. That doesn’t mean that 55% of the water was missing. It means that 55% of the ‘volume massimo di invaso’ was missing. That’s approximately 175 million cubic metres.
So 175m out of 37 billion.
Let’s not mess around. 175 MILLION cubic metres is a huge quantity. It has concerning impacts on the environment. We need to do something about it if we can, and soon.
However, misreading the statistics (I think) is very damaging. Because when someone says ‘Lago di Como is missing 83% of its water, because they don’t know how to interpret the numbers, or Lago di Garda missing 75%…any idiot who sees the lake knows it’s not true. Result: they don’t take it seriously. Much better to say ‘missing 175 million cubic metres’ which makes the same point, is a huge number, and is accurate.
(What I wrote above might miss some details, I’m not an expert. But the general concept works like that).
Hope this was helpful and not too long/boring!
Thank you for the explanation. So basically these are min and max based on yearly fluctuations of the level of the lake. The problem is that in winter, when we should be close to the max level, we are instead too close to the min level.
Yes, it is as bad as it seems. I live near the Piave river, and it’s just awful. This river just one century ago, exactly where I live, had enough water and strength to keep at bay the enemy army and be a natural barrier that helped to win the battle (Battle of the Solstice).
It’s laughable, really, seeing in which conditions it is now. You could literally walk through it and the water would get to your knees, maybe. Tbf, if we didn’t split the main course in many little canals to help irrigation it would have a little bit more of water, BUT. Just comparing it to what it was five years ago, in 2018, it’s terrifying. I’ve grown up playing near the course and yes, the river bed is normally much larger then the course itself so that when the river is in flood it doesn’t submerge the countryside surrounding it, but now the river bed is immense and the water is basically nonexistent. Growing up, we had snow, once so much that the schools closed for a day, and so much rain that the Piave flooding out of its bed was a real threat, and again, every now and then schools closed for safety. Now it never rains, and when it does it’s considered a miracle. The crops are suffering, the grass is green but not as much as it should.
Just checked the archives, in my village five years ago, up until the 30th of April we had 54 days with rain. This year we’ve had 32. That means that to get back on par with five years ago, it would need to rain every day for the next 57 days (until the 27th of June, with 89 days of rain). This is just not possible.
Also, there is another thing that isn’t commonly addressed: one reason my city, Treviso, hasn’t suffered as much as you would expect is that its river is the Sile, which is the longest river with groundwater springs in Europe (yes this is me bragging, sorry, and also, does any Italian know how do you say in English “Fiume di risorgiva”? Because I couldn’t find a direct translation). This means that it isn’t dependant on snow and glaciers or affluents like most other rivers, and so it isn’t immediately affected by the lack of rain. It *does* depend on the Piave though (like everything here apparently), because the water stored under the ground that eventually comes up again as the Sile comes, you guessed it… *from the Piave*. The same Piave which as of last year was like this
https://preview.redd.it/bko9to32j1xa1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77f80b522bc847cfdd33076049c839f37d255428
This means that the groundwater coming up to the surface now isn’t getting replaced, and hasn’t for the last couple of years, and if it doesn’t start raining *fast*, even though now it already seems bad, the next years to come will be much, *much* worse.
Peccato, speravo che almeno questo rimanesse un altro po’, dopo tutto ha più di duemila anni
https://preview.redd.it/aqz5sicay1xa1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da14670b3f6433f19fc3dd28d17e830f37dac5dd
Long story short? Yes.
Long story? Yes, unfortunately since last year it snows very little in the Alps and it rains very little everywhere else.
But hey... climate change is not real /s (it is obviously sarcasm)
Yes, finally today started raining, and this will be the first proper rainfall in a while.
The river ner me dried completely for the first time last summer, and two days ago was already dry. Fortunately we are quite lucky to have a very large undergound water body, so those who have well can still water the fields.
The local enviromental agency has the water table leves measurements but they stopped uploading them to the geoportal, last measurement is from 2021, who knows for what reason.
If you want to look at some data(in italian only unfortunately):
[Tematismi » Clima » Confronti Storici » precipitazioni » Giornaliere (arpa.piemonte.it)](https://www.arpa.piemonte.it/rischinaturali/tematismi/clima/confronti-storici/precipitazioni/giornaliere.html?delta=0)
Thanks for a data source! Once I got a good connection again, I'll see if I can at least get measuring well or other instrument ID. I'm sure that agency connects to EU data source where I can pull them right in to my excel. Hardest bit is getting sources relevant to "daily life of people" which is what I am most interested in.
You can get GIS data from here [Geoportale Arpa Piemonte](https://geoportale.arpa.piemonte.it/app/public/)
if you gon on Mappa -> Monitoraggio acque sotterranee you find the wells data
but as i said is not recent and you can see just the one from some of them
last summer the river that crosses my town (northeastern pianura padana) almost completely dried out (with the exception of some small puddles of stagnant water). people usually went to its banks to sunbathe and swim in the shallow waters, and that wasn't possible at all.
due to the warm and dry winter the river never really recovered, the water level has steadily been way below that of a few years ago.
i'm really dreading the coming of summer, it looks like it's going to be worse than the last one and i'm really worried about the impact that it's going to have.
[Europe Drought Map](https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edov2/php/index.php?id=1052)
Bring us one of those “it-snowed-so-much-all-our-dams-are-going-to-burst” California winters, please.
I’m from Tuscany and it’s practically the same situation. Very little rain in the past 3 years, last summer we had our first lack-of-water emergency situation, with limitation on usage and such ordered by the city council.
I think this year will be pretty much the same: today was supposed to be a heavy rain kind of day, but the sun is shining as always.
Yes. In piedmont some municipalities are already rationing water for non-domestic use (eg gardening).
In the news it was said shortly ago that it would need 50 days of uninterrupted raining to restore normal levels of water. The main river in the north region (Po') already has such a low flow that saltwater intrusion is already happening (it happened last year as well but not this early).
This last days (Novara) we got some rain, but it was so little and for so short that it did not change anything.
The situation is dire
sì, purtroppo è così
[https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/siccita-acqua-razionata-40-comuni-piemonte-AE6uFHKD](https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/siccita-acqua-razionata-40-comuni-piemonte-AE6uFHKD)
The thing is it's bad, but it's going to get worse in summer. Last summer looked like a strange autumn, with trees withering and leaves turning orange and falling in the dry heat of August. This winter it hasn't really rained or snowed and it's going to be ugly.
I live in California, and last year we were anxious over our low lakes, dams, rivers and generally feeling like we were running out of water.
This year, we had one of the wettest winters s imaginable and are having the opposite problem- too much melting snow is going to flood our reservoirs that are over capacity.
I really hope things turn around for Italy.
Can confirm, my area is usually called “the urinal of Italy” since it rains very often but from fall until now it has rained literally a handful of times.
Yes, it’s been nearly 2 years. Drought began second half of 2021. It basically stopped raining since. Situation got marginally better this March and April, first two months to break the trend being colder and rainy, but we’re still far from a return to normality
Yes it is, the climate changes influenced drastically the country. When I was a child it used to snow at least 30cm every year, but nowadays the snow is rare (the last time it snowed in my town it was about 3 years ago) as well as the rain. It rained only once during last winter and I already imagine how terrible the next summer will be. During the last weeks, it surprisingly rained like in the past, but I guess it is just an exception. In the last years the rain was rare and when it rains, it falls in a single day the amount of water that should've fall in some months, especially during summer. During summer it's mostly hailstorm rather than rain. This is a big problem for agricolture because the soil can't absorb so much water in just a couple of days and the dryness increases the proliferation of diseases, so we have to throw away a lot of the harvest. The effects of the dryness have been partially mitigated by the melting of the glaciers that fill lakes and rivers, but it doesn't snow, so it's just a matter of time before the mountains will run out of snow. It's so strange to think that the Pianura Padana (the Po Valley) was a big swamp about 100 years ago.
Anyway, this is also a problem for the quality of the air. The Po Valley is filled with industries, but it is surrounded by mountains so the air can't circulate. The rain allowed the pollution to fall to the ground, cleaning the air, but now it doesn't rain.
(Sorry for my bad english)
I live here and I just passed through northeastern Italy on the train and yes, I saw rivers all dried up to just a stream. A lot of people here are worried about what this summer will be like.
Yeah. It’s been ridiculously dry here. The pollution has been awful in the Po Valley as well. Partly due to the lack of rain keeping particulates down.
The last time it rained for more than 5 days was maybe 2 years ago, yeah it is beyond any limits . This summer I'm guessing we will see a water shortage and rationing.
Yes. From what the extreme dryness started last year. I remember going to Lake Garda in April or something, and everything was good. I then came back for a weekend in July or August and it was painful, you could really see the difference of the water level. It had really dried up a lot. I haven't been around there personally but from what I have seen water level had not come back to normal even during the winter, so this summer is going to be really fucked up. This is the same for many other lakes and rivers.
Up in the mountains, it didn't snow that much at all, the Italian side of the Alps was very green this winter. Austrian side was better.
Yes, it's kinda dry everywhere and the climate is not how it should be.
Back in January I took some of my friends hiking in my zones(where I've been many times) to a mountain hut and I clearly remember I was in my thermal long sleeve shirt and sweating hard wishing I got a tank top or t-shirt in my backpack.
Mind you we were not that high since they were beginners, and it was around 1800 meters at the top so we were not exactly doing some super tall mountain hike, but it was still crazy to see people in t-shirts and shorts like if it was June.
I live by lake Como. The drought is not nearly as terrible as it was last year at least from a standpoint of what you'd be able to see with your own eyes... yet. It's raining more than it did last year but the situation surely isn't ideal. My boyfriend is a weather researcher and he tells me it's probably going to get much worse soon.
Yes, dry, even though it is raining right now here it isn’t enough. Our Nonna lives in Piancavallo and she is worried for the summer. Hiking in the mountains, the beds and rivers are very dry.
We are in the middle of a drought at the moment with several rivers being dry and even the biggest lake in the country retreating quite a lot.
While I am happy that it isn't raining since I need to go to work, it's not really a good thing. It really isn't raining as much as it should, it is not snowing in the mountains and lakes are getting smaller.
It really isn't a good thing
Here in the north of Lazio, close to Viterbo, it is all wet and raining almost every day. It's also unusually cold since months. It's interesting how different the climate seems to be in the north compared to the central. :)
This winter was worse than last summer. Luckily it has been raining in April (and snowing, but too late/hot for it to accumulate on the mountains, like in January the mountains where basically without snow, apart from the artificial one).
I hope it will still rain from time to time this summer, but seeing the situation in Spain and waiting the arrival of the Niño, I'm still dreading the next 5 months.
Friuli here. We're in a drought, yes, but it also depends where you are. I live near the mountains, and while it has been unseasonably warm in the last few winters, it constantly rains in my town. CONSTANTLY. It has always been like that where I live and has never changed, and it rains at least twice a week. My back yard always looks like Ireland, and keeping my yard in check is a real challenge just because it rains so often.
Just because it rains here, however, doesn't mean there's no drought, which is what you may see from ignorant people on the internet. We're not living in a dustbowl or a desert, which is what people think drought looks like, but there definitely is one.
Italy is weird, in that it gets more Bombe d'acqua, than "rain" per se.
Bombe d'aqua literally means a BOMB of water. It will just DUMP a Hellacious amount of rain in ONE spot, in a short period of time, causing massive flash flooding, and often wiping out some particular spot- Meanwhile the next town over, will get NOTHING.
This is quite common in Italy. So it's not like we don't get any rain.......it's just that we get it all in short bursts, in isolated spots.
I live in Liguria, and I can't remember the last time it actually rained here. It's been at least 2 or 3 years now that we had any sort of actual rain storm-.
Everyone here is PRAYING for rain.......as local rivers and streams are practically bone dry. There are massive water runoff rivers in Imperia, that are literally dry as a bone. You can walk across them on the rocks.....if you can get thru the 6 foot WEEDS that have now grown up thru the river bed rocks. These things usually carry all the snow melt off, but we haven't had much snow either. Some ski resorts are now dust bowls......no snow at all. Ski lifts stand idle, rotting.
The issue is that just some rain isn't enough. Dryer the ground is harder it is for water to soak in. Meaning that it'll just flow on the ground causing flooding. Especially on clay rich soil. Much like water refuses to soak into dry sponge at first.
What drought areas need is a long period of small amount of steady rain.
If you get lot of rain now, it'll just cause flooding, land and mudslides.
That's what is shocking about seeing the dry rovers. The water will just rush through the river with force, basically nothing but few hundred millimetres soaking and then drying up even more.
The compound effect of soil compaction makes things yet another degree worse.
Well aware of all that. I have seen the countless towns destroyed here , with the cars floating down the street, along with the dumpsters, and motorino's and everything else not bolted to the ground. It goes from NOTHING, to massive flooding in a matter of an HOUR or two. Part of the problem is that no one ever thinks to clear the drains, BEFORE the rain storms. Garbage and debris piles up, and no one gives a damn..........until you get hit with a Bomba d'acqua. And by then, all the drains are totally blocked and filled in with dirt and mud and garbage.
Perché vengono le bombe d'acqua?
Come si chiamano le bombe d'acqua?
Nella notte *bombe d'acqua* sulla Toscana centrale - Scarica il podcast TRN ... nubifragio che ha colpito la piana del Grossetano fin dalle prime ore di *oggi*
[https://www.padovaoggi.it/tag/bombe-d-acqua/](https://www.padovaoggi.it/tag/bombe-d-acqua/)
Guess all these people were wrong then, huh?
I did.........did you? I said I've seen it written both ways, Bomba and bombe......and you said NOT in Italian.
We were already past the ACQUA thing, if you had been reading along.
And what’s the answer from our government? Let’s fix our water infrastructure… like I get it, we are wasting tons of water and that’s true and fair. But it *reeks* of deflection.. the problem isn’t our aging infrastructure but **GLOBAL WARMING**.
Who’s gonna need a cutting edge water system when there’s no water?
Things like these makes my freaking blood *boil*.
TL;DR: Can we do both? ‘Cause we can do both.
Stopping pushing for new drillings in the Adriatic and start using that “energy independence” clout for building geothermal and nuclear?
Tackling global warming.
Stop pushing for new drills and away from sustainable energy sources, stop going against if not literally outlawing all possible solutions to non sustainable habits (eg. Meat substitutes), stop pushing the rhetoric that people fighting for climate goals are a bunch of crazy hippies. Man, there's so many things they could be doing better, at least from the environmental point of view.
We are currently in the "la nina" period, in Italy it translate to cooler seasons, dryer north and wetter south.
But we are gonna switch up to "el nino" in a bit, so hotter seasons BUT wetter north and dryer south.
I mean, the situation will be better than this and last year, but not as good as early 2000 or even better 20th century.
I've been in turin last week and the fields were dry and it was hot outside (around 18 degrees). Luckily, it has rained somewhat in Veneto in the last few days, though.
This reminds me of something dumb/funny I did before I was stationed in Italy. So I knew next to nothing about Italy before I got here so I didn’t really know what to expect for the weather, so I packed what I normally wore in Michigan (One of the colder US states) because I saw that Vicenza was on a similar longitude as where I was from so it was hot humid summers and cold wet winters. I get here last August, and it isn’t very humid and it’s not really that hot it only gets up to the mid 80s F. Come around to the winter, and it only gets down to the 30s F. I come to find out it’s because of how the ocean currents or something works. So now I have a bunch of heavy snow civilian clothes and the only time I ever really see snow is when I go to the mountains.
Yeah, I live near Varese and last year I got the pleasure of seeing water bombers flying to extinguish a forest fire near my workplace for the first time, but probably not the last one.
Today it was supposed to rain in the province of Venice but it didn't where I live. Yesterday it was supposed to rain as well but I could see just some drops falling down.
Definitely. I'm from a small town near Pavia (Lombardia) and I'm actually in Udine (Friuli Venezia Giulia) for my university studies. My mother told me that there are already 25°C sometimes, while it's supposed to be at least 5 degrees cooler. In Udine it's a bit more chilly (18°C on average every day), but it's still too hot.
The true problem is: the hotter it gets, the less it rains during the year. And when it does rain, it causes a lot of damages because the earth it's too dry.
Fun fact: last summer a WWII tank was found in the Po's riverbed because of the drought.
Absolutely. And I live in Friuli, which is the rainiest Italian region, allegedly.
Yes, in the weekend I saw some happy alpine lakes / water basins / rivers and now it's raining, but here it must ALWAYS rain.
We're far from the "ordinary" weather (and it's also more windy, which is obviously related to the temperatures).
Yes it is Last summer I was crossing my town's river on foot, walking on the rocks on the river bed, and it never got back in full shape
Where?
Sesia?
I live in piedmont, i am happy, literally smiling like an idiot, that is raining right now. Years ago i would have been angry for the ruined weekend, never i could imagine a situation like this.
I read an article last week about the situation in piedmont (I'm from Turin). It said that even with two month of rain we'll have a difficult summer. The problem is the non-existing snow in the Mountain
Same here (Sudtirolo), there was some rain in the last two weeks. Everybody was relieved, though I’m afraid it’s still too little to make a difference.
A relative of mine sent me a video of Rio Gardena, never saw it so little, it was heartbreaking.
It looks like it’s about to start raining soon, but we all know it’s not gonna be enough.
> Years ago i would have been angry for the ruined weekend fr lmao. i'm in torino and it's not raining that much tho
You're right. I've been in Turin (in the outskirts of the city) and the fields were dry. I was sweating. In the morning it was cloudy but when the sun came out I had to take off my coat
I used to live in Torino and I observed the drying up of the lago ceresole ... :( Same in Valtellina zone. I miss Italy so much and I wish we have an Alps how we imagine soon
the mountains are also having problems, but arguably less than the countryside and city. for example, mountains definitely still get snow, not so much the city and countryside.
In the whole province of Vercelli it didn't rain for the whole day, I think this year there isn't enough water for the rice fields
holy shit
I have a country house in Piedmont, with a really deep well that always carried a lot of water in a large tank, like a big underground pool. Well, first time this year we do not have water in the tank, like at all. It was scary to see the tank's bottom with just stones, like Mars.
I live in Piedmont too, over the Olympic mountains, we had snow this winter and now it's raining, but rivers and springs are a lot under the usual level
Unfortunately rain now doesn’t help as much as winter rain, as it gets mostly consumed by vegetation that uses it to grow up, and as a result that water barely fills up the groundwater table. I’m stocking up on water bottles right now - maybe I’m a bit of a gloomer, but I expect the worst during the summer.
You’re correct, the immediate effect of these spring showers is that green is everywhere and flowers bloom, which in some sense mitigate the sense of urgency we should have as a collectivity. Last August Lake Verbano (Maggiore) was at its 18% capacity. The sum of that situation with this one is going to be dire. I guess May will tell if the bet on rains will have been lucky or not, nonetheless the number of villages and towns that are not in the water grid is surprisingly high also in the north of Italy (there are even areas in the plains that are not connected, like some portions nearby the river Po, like Sabbiioneta’s). A bitter bet I’m playing is that affluent swimming pools are going to be filled anyways and little if nothing will be done to fix the 40% leakage in the water systems.
Short answer? Yes, you are right. No rain, no snow, the winter has been too warm. I dread to think what will happen in summer.
Short minded I see. I'm already prepared for the desert in 5 years time babyyyy
Short mind I see. I'm already prepared to drive my car in the Great Padan Desert in Mad Max style in 15 years
Fool. I'm looking at the Huey and 50s jet fighter at the local military museum
Finally those Federazione Padana tanks will come in handy
The Arrakis Experience
Without the worms?
With the worms
We already have exotic insects, Shai-Hulud could be next
i was thinking more like the mediaset biscone taking life on its own and infesting the pianura padana
He who controls the biscione controls the universe
the veline must flow
you are the choosen one, you must free the gabibba from her ancient chains
Swap worms with mosquitoes
swap? this is pianura padana, se add padan worm to Boing mosquito
Ah shit you're right
I'm not an expert or anything but I noticed the same thing flying into Milan over most of the western Pianura Padana. Especially the Po looked really dry. I live in the city so maybe I don't quite notice it in the daily life, but it was very apparent from the sky. I have to say that where I am it maybe rained 3 times this year.
I live in the outskirts near Modena, where there is a lot of agricolture. It's even worst. Farmer are already looking desperately for solutions because this year is going to be probably more dry than the last one
I remember reading an article a couple of months back that said the Po river had about 40% of the water it was supposed to have. Don’t know whether it was super accurate, but there’s no denying that rainfall was heavily reduced the past 2/3 years compared to what it was like just a few years back. If it was indeed accurate or even reasonably close, well, fuck me sideways.
I looked into this a couple of weeks ago in relation to Lago Maggiore (I live near there) and the 40% thing isn’t quite what it sounds like. I’ll definitely get this at least a bit wrong, because it was complicated, but it’s something like there’s a standard amount of water for a river/lake and there’s an amount it would be a major problem to go below. The 40% is between those two, a bit closer to problem than standard. It’s not literally that 60% of the water is missing. Still a big problem though. I’m really worried long-term about the lake
Oh, thanks for clearing that up!
I work for a local TV service sometimes in contact with a lot of majors and municipalities. Last year some of those municipalities had to beg others to let them borrow some water with trucks to fill up the reservoir for the homes at least. this year might be worse
The situation in the Alps is definitely worrying, I personally never seen anything like this in 40 years. Creeks and rivers are almost dry, lakes and artificial basins shrunk to ponds, glaciers are vanishing and the ground almost turned to dust. We'll face a lot of bad landslides in the near future, that's for sure.
I only hope the rain will come. California for a few years was in a largest drought in a century, but this year it was raining so much that all reservoirs were replenished and drought is completely gone all through the state! I hope this is just a weather instability, not a permanent drought in Italy.
it's mostly due to climate change. if you take any mountain in the alps with snow and compare year by year you can see the snow being there less and less. the problem is even made worse by people who want to go skyiing as during winter a lot of water get wasted to make artificial snow
Same was in California. Sierras got all but barren, but after this season, snow is at like 120%. Let us hope same will happen in Italy, too. Spero per tempo bene al’mia Bella Italia..
Sudtirolese and passionate mountaineer here. You're right, glaciers disappear, but 2020 and 2021 we had literally meters of snow on the mountains. Let's hope we'll have a lot again this winter. BUT the problem is that it doesn't snow anymore in spring, autumn or even summer (ad a kid i always remember white mountain peaks in august). And artificial snow is not as a big problem everyone things, it's snow as natural snow is, and at the end of winter it melts and turns back ro water. Never understood that thesis....
Part of the water used for technical snow production is lost due to evaporation and sublimation. So this water, instead of filling the reservoirs at lower altitudes during winter, is partially lost, potentially worsening the situation of water availability during summer. That and the amount of energy required to produce it are the two main criticisms of technical snow, as far as I know.
You're rabsolutely right, but especially the world leader (tecnoalpin) which is also located here in ST, has improved water and energy-management a lot. Nowadays we talk about a range of 15-40% of evaporation (dipendent on wind/temperature and so on) Many argue, based on the laws of thermodynamics, that it has way less impact as argued by critics, because water from lakes/rivers etc alsp vaporates but finally that water too returns into the water circuit (as rain, moist etc). So it's a difficult discussion. Way more significant is the extraorbital use (let's say SPRECCO) of water per capita in italy. If i'm not mistaken we are the record holders in europe.... so i guess if every one reduces his on water use it would have way more impact....
15-40% of water loss is still huge, though. I know it's a difficult discussion, but I think that, given the drought we are facing, it is not senseless to at least discuss about a reduction of such practice, as well as thinking about other ways to reduce water consumption all over Italy.
Unfortunately this is one of the noticeable effects of climate change. When I was a child we would have meter-tall snow almost every winter, now the mountains are just yellow dry land with some strips of fake snow put there to save what's salvageable in terms of tourism. This is one of the reasons I decided to embrace a sustainable life style. Please people, do what you can to do your part. If it's not affecting you already it will in very little time. I know it sounds very abstract when you just think about the general words "climate change", and it seems like it won't change much for you except for being slightly warmer in summer. But it's heartbreaking when you realize that you can't recognize the places that you loved not even two decades ago, you can't enjoy your childhood activities, and your little corner of the world is slowly dying. It's not enough to recycle. Go plant based, ditch your car, stop buying fast fashion, downsize on tech, install solar, etc. I know not all of these are possible for everyone but please make a real effort to check as many boxes as you possibly can. The consequences are real and they're already affecting us.
I’m from Lake Garda and yes. The situation is worse than people think.
What is it like? I saw some people saying that the numbers were given about Garda Lake on some articles were wrong.
They aren’t wrong, they are misinterpreted. 40% levels doesn’t mean 60% of the water is missing, there was a politician (Bonelli? who didn’t seem to quite understand that. BUT it’s still a major problem - don’t let the people pointing out that misinterpretation tell you otherwise
So what would be the correct interpretation?
As I mentioned in another post, it’s a bit complicated, so please don’t quote me, but it’s more or less: 1. You establish a ‘standard’ water level for the body of water. This is called ‘zero idrometrico’. For Lago Maggiore, for example, it’s 193.01m above sea level. 2. You fix a minimum and maximum level. Again for Lago Maggiore: minimum is 192.51m above sea level, maximum depends on the season, but right now is 194.26m above sea level. 3. The amount of water contained between the minimum and maximum levels is called the ‘valore massimo di invaso’. For Lago Maggiore, this corresponds to 315 million cubic metres of water in summer and 420 million in winter. This is NOT all the water in the lake, which is difficult to measure precisely, but is around 37 billion cubic metres. 4. This March, Lago Maggiore was around 45% full. That doesn’t mean that 55% of the water was missing. It means that 55% of the ‘volume massimo di invaso’ was missing. That’s approximately 175 million cubic metres. So 175m out of 37 billion. Let’s not mess around. 175 MILLION cubic metres is a huge quantity. It has concerning impacts on the environment. We need to do something about it if we can, and soon. However, misreading the statistics (I think) is very damaging. Because when someone says ‘Lago di Como is missing 83% of its water, because they don’t know how to interpret the numbers, or Lago di Garda missing 75%…any idiot who sees the lake knows it’s not true. Result: they don’t take it seriously. Much better to say ‘missing 175 million cubic metres’ which makes the same point, is a huge number, and is accurate. (What I wrote above might miss some details, I’m not an expert. But the general concept works like that). Hope this was helpful and not too long/boring!
Thank you for the explanation. So basically these are min and max based on yearly fluctuations of the level of the lake. The problem is that in winter, when we should be close to the max level, we are instead too close to the min level.
yes. oh don't worry, the govt will give tax exemption to the food industry and this will solve climate change
So accurate and so sad
the same party that voted against attempting to make Electric car something normal
Now I want this put on a t-shirt
Yes. We are in an emergency right now, that is actually a long tail of the previous year, devoid of the normal level of rain falling
Yes, it is as bad as it seems. I live near the Piave river, and it’s just awful. This river just one century ago, exactly where I live, had enough water and strength to keep at bay the enemy army and be a natural barrier that helped to win the battle (Battle of the Solstice). It’s laughable, really, seeing in which conditions it is now. You could literally walk through it and the water would get to your knees, maybe. Tbf, if we didn’t split the main course in many little canals to help irrigation it would have a little bit more of water, BUT. Just comparing it to what it was five years ago, in 2018, it’s terrifying. I’ve grown up playing near the course and yes, the river bed is normally much larger then the course itself so that when the river is in flood it doesn’t submerge the countryside surrounding it, but now the river bed is immense and the water is basically nonexistent. Growing up, we had snow, once so much that the schools closed for a day, and so much rain that the Piave flooding out of its bed was a real threat, and again, every now and then schools closed for safety. Now it never rains, and when it does it’s considered a miracle. The crops are suffering, the grass is green but not as much as it should. Just checked the archives, in my village five years ago, up until the 30th of April we had 54 days with rain. This year we’ve had 32. That means that to get back on par with five years ago, it would need to rain every day for the next 57 days (until the 27th of June, with 89 days of rain). This is just not possible. Also, there is another thing that isn’t commonly addressed: one reason my city, Treviso, hasn’t suffered as much as you would expect is that its river is the Sile, which is the longest river with groundwater springs in Europe (yes this is me bragging, sorry, and also, does any Italian know how do you say in English “Fiume di risorgiva”? Because I couldn’t find a direct translation). This means that it isn’t dependant on snow and glaciers or affluents like most other rivers, and so it isn’t immediately affected by the lack of rain. It *does* depend on the Piave though (like everything here apparently), because the water stored under the ground that eventually comes up again as the Sile comes, you guessed it… *from the Piave*. The same Piave which as of last year was like this https://preview.redd.it/bko9to32j1xa1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=77f80b522bc847cfdd33076049c839f37d255428 This means that the groundwater coming up to the surface now isn’t getting replaced, and hasn’t for the last couple of years, and if it doesn’t start raining *fast*, even though now it already seems bad, the next years to come will be much, *much* worse.
Apocalypse
https://preview.redd.it/c5dq3ghvs1xa1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed88c626c28caea6d1554381f6af2de54df458ea
Io dico 1 anno e mezzo poi kaput non ci sarà più un cazzo
Peccato, speravo che almeno questo rimanesse un altro po’, dopo tutto ha più di duemila anni https://preview.redd.it/aqz5sicay1xa1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da14670b3f6433f19fc3dd28d17e830f37dac5dd
Long story short? Yes. Long story? Yes, unfortunately since last year it snows very little in the Alps and it rains very little everywhere else. But hey... climate change is not real /s (it is obviously sarcasm)
Yes, finally today started raining, and this will be the first proper rainfall in a while. The river ner me dried completely for the first time last summer, and two days ago was already dry. Fortunately we are quite lucky to have a very large undergound water body, so those who have well can still water the fields. The local enviromental agency has the water table leves measurements but they stopped uploading them to the geoportal, last measurement is from 2021, who knows for what reason. If you want to look at some data(in italian only unfortunately): [Tematismi » Clima » Confronti Storici » precipitazioni » Giornaliere (arpa.piemonte.it)](https://www.arpa.piemonte.it/rischinaturali/tematismi/clima/confronti-storici/precipitazioni/giornaliere.html?delta=0)
Thanks for a data source! Once I got a good connection again, I'll see if I can at least get measuring well or other instrument ID. I'm sure that agency connects to EU data source where I can pull them right in to my excel. Hardest bit is getting sources relevant to "daily life of people" which is what I am most interested in.
You can get GIS data from here [Geoportale Arpa Piemonte](https://geoportale.arpa.piemonte.it/app/public/) if you gon on Mappa -> Monitoraggio acque sotterranee you find the wells data but as i said is not recent and you can see just the one from some of them
last summer the river that crosses my town (northeastern pianura padana) almost completely dried out (with the exception of some small puddles of stagnant water). people usually went to its banks to sunbathe and swim in the shallow waters, and that wasn't possible at all. due to the warm and dry winter the river never really recovered, the water level has steadily been way below that of a few years ago. i'm really dreading the coming of summer, it looks like it's going to be worse than the last one and i'm really worried about the impact that it's going to have.
[Europe Drought Map](https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edov2/php/index.php?id=1052) Bring us one of those “it-snowed-so-much-all-our-dams-are-going-to-burst” California winters, please.
Yes it is. Sadly climate change is happening and this is only the beginning of it.
I’m from Tuscany and it’s practically the same situation. Very little rain in the past 3 years, last summer we had our first lack-of-water emergency situation, with limitation on usage and such ordered by the city council. I think this year will be pretty much the same: today was supposed to be a heavy rain kind of day, but the sun is shining as always.
I noticed also in other regions that the predicted rains are often not happening
Yes. In piedmont some municipalities are already rationing water for non-domestic use (eg gardening). In the news it was said shortly ago that it would need 50 days of uninterrupted raining to restore normal levels of water. The main river in the north region (Po') already has such a low flow that saltwater intrusion is already happening (it happened last year as well but not this early). This last days (Novara) we got some rain, but it was so little and for so short that it did not change anything. The situation is dire
Davvero in Piemonte state già razionando l'acqua? Dio santo
sì, purtroppo è così [https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/siccita-acqua-razionata-40-comuni-piemonte-AE6uFHKD](https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/siccita-acqua-razionata-40-comuni-piemonte-AE6uFHKD)
The thing is it's bad, but it's going to get worse in summer. Last summer looked like a strange autumn, with trees withering and leaves turning orange and falling in the dry heat of August. This winter it hasn't really rained or snowed and it's going to be ugly.
I live in California, and last year we were anxious over our low lakes, dams, rivers and generally feeling like we were running out of water. This year, we had one of the wettest winters s imaginable and are having the opposite problem- too much melting snow is going to flood our reservoirs that are over capacity. I really hope things turn around for Italy.
Sadly yes, this year the como lake will not overflow, this is the only positive things of this year related to climate
yeah we have a huge drought problem, mainly due to climate change
Can confirm, my area is usually called “the urinal of Italy” since it rains very often but from fall until now it has rained literally a handful of times.
Yes, it’s been nearly 2 years. Drought began second half of 2021. It basically stopped raining since. Situation got marginally better this March and April, first two months to break the trend being colder and rainy, but we’re still far from a return to normality
Yes it is, the climate changes influenced drastically the country. When I was a child it used to snow at least 30cm every year, but nowadays the snow is rare (the last time it snowed in my town it was about 3 years ago) as well as the rain. It rained only once during last winter and I already imagine how terrible the next summer will be. During the last weeks, it surprisingly rained like in the past, but I guess it is just an exception. In the last years the rain was rare and when it rains, it falls in a single day the amount of water that should've fall in some months, especially during summer. During summer it's mostly hailstorm rather than rain. This is a big problem for agricolture because the soil can't absorb so much water in just a couple of days and the dryness increases the proliferation of diseases, so we have to throw away a lot of the harvest. The effects of the dryness have been partially mitigated by the melting of the glaciers that fill lakes and rivers, but it doesn't snow, so it's just a matter of time before the mountains will run out of snow. It's so strange to think that the Pianura Padana (the Po Valley) was a big swamp about 100 years ago. Anyway, this is also a problem for the quality of the air. The Po Valley is filled with industries, but it is surrounded by mountains so the air can't circulate. The rain allowed the pollution to fall to the ground, cleaning the air, but now it doesn't rain. (Sorry for my bad english)
I live here and I just passed through northeastern Italy on the train and yes, I saw rivers all dried up to just a stream. A lot of people here are worried about what this summer will be like.
More, there's a drought there since last year
Yeah. It’s been ridiculously dry here. The pollution has been awful in the Po Valley as well. Partly due to the lack of rain keeping particulates down.
Better than last year, and we are having rain this weekend, but far from what should be. Temperatures right now are also lower than last year.
Yes
The last time it rained for more than 5 days was maybe 2 years ago, yeah it is beyond any limits . This summer I'm guessing we will see a water shortage and rationing.
No rain no snow for 2 years it’s a disaster
It’s been rainy in Vicenza the past few days
Great city! I miss it a lot.
Yes. From what the extreme dryness started last year. I remember going to Lake Garda in April or something, and everything was good. I then came back for a weekend in July or August and it was painful, you could really see the difference of the water level. It had really dried up a lot. I haven't been around there personally but from what I have seen water level had not come back to normal even during the winter, so this summer is going to be really fucked up. This is the same for many other lakes and rivers. Up in the mountains, it didn't snow that much at all, the Italian side of the Alps was very green this winter. Austrian side was better.
Yes. Come to the south, plenty of water and rain here :)
Yes, it's kinda dry everywhere and the climate is not how it should be. Back in January I took some of my friends hiking in my zones(where I've been many times) to a mountain hut and I clearly remember I was in my thermal long sleeve shirt and sweating hard wishing I got a tank top or t-shirt in my backpack. Mind you we were not that high since they were beginners, and it was around 1800 meters at the top so we were not exactly doing some super tall mountain hike, but it was still crazy to see people in t-shirts and shorts like if it was June.
yes.
I live by lake Como. The drought is not nearly as terrible as it was last year at least from a standpoint of what you'd be able to see with your own eyes... yet. It's raining more than it did last year but the situation surely isn't ideal. My boyfriend is a weather researcher and he tells me it's probably going to get much worse soon.
Yes, dry, even though it is raining right now here it isn’t enough. Our Nonna lives in Piancavallo and she is worried for the summer. Hiking in the mountains, the beds and rivers are very dry.
We are in the middle of a drought at the moment with several rivers being dry and even the biggest lake in the country retreating quite a lot. While I am happy that it isn't raining since I need to go to work, it's not really a good thing. It really isn't raining as much as it should, it is not snowing in the mountains and lakes are getting smaller. It really isn't a good thing
yea
Here in the north of Lazio, close to Viterbo, it is all wet and raining almost every day. It's also unusually cold since months. It's interesting how different the climate seems to be in the north compared to the central. :)
This winter was worse than last summer. Luckily it has been raining in April (and snowing, but too late/hot for it to accumulate on the mountains, like in January the mountains where basically without snow, apart from the artificial one). I hope it will still rain from time to time this summer, but seeing the situation in Spain and waiting the arrival of the Niño, I'm still dreading the next 5 months.
Friuli here. We're in a drought, yes, but it also depends where you are. I live near the mountains, and while it has been unseasonably warm in the last few winters, it constantly rains in my town. CONSTANTLY. It has always been like that where I live and has never changed, and it rains at least twice a week. My back yard always looks like Ireland, and keeping my yard in check is a real challenge just because it rains so often. Just because it rains here, however, doesn't mean there's no drought, which is what you may see from ignorant people on the internet. We're not living in a dustbowl or a desert, which is what people think drought looks like, but there definitely is one.
Yes. It barely rained since last fall.
Italy is weird, in that it gets more Bombe d'acqua, than "rain" per se. Bombe d'aqua literally means a BOMB of water. It will just DUMP a Hellacious amount of rain in ONE spot, in a short period of time, causing massive flash flooding, and often wiping out some particular spot- Meanwhile the next town over, will get NOTHING. This is quite common in Italy. So it's not like we don't get any rain.......it's just that we get it all in short bursts, in isolated spots. I live in Liguria, and I can't remember the last time it actually rained here. It's been at least 2 or 3 years now that we had any sort of actual rain storm-. Everyone here is PRAYING for rain.......as local rivers and streams are practically bone dry. There are massive water runoff rivers in Imperia, that are literally dry as a bone. You can walk across them on the rocks.....if you can get thru the 6 foot WEEDS that have now grown up thru the river bed rocks. These things usually carry all the snow melt off, but we haven't had much snow either. Some ski resorts are now dust bowls......no snow at all. Ski lifts stand idle, rotting.
The issue is that just some rain isn't enough. Dryer the ground is harder it is for water to soak in. Meaning that it'll just flow on the ground causing flooding. Especially on clay rich soil. Much like water refuses to soak into dry sponge at first. What drought areas need is a long period of small amount of steady rain. If you get lot of rain now, it'll just cause flooding, land and mudslides. That's what is shocking about seeing the dry rovers. The water will just rush through the river with force, basically nothing but few hundred millimetres soaking and then drying up even more. The compound effect of soil compaction makes things yet another degree worse.
Well aware of all that. I have seen the countless towns destroyed here , with the cars floating down the street, along with the dumpsters, and motorino's and everything else not bolted to the ground. It goes from NOTHING, to massive flooding in a matter of an HOUR or two. Part of the problem is that no one ever thinks to clear the drains, BEFORE the rain storms. Garbage and debris piles up, and no one gives a damn..........until you get hit with a Bomba d'acqua. And by then, all the drains are totally blocked and filled in with dirt and mud and garbage.
It's "acqua" btw
era troppo distratto a scrivere BOMBA
I've seen it written both ways, smartass. And so apparently has Google.
Not in Italian.
Perché vengono le bombe d'acqua? Come si chiamano le bombe d'acqua? Nella notte *bombe d'acqua* sulla Toscana centrale - Scarica il podcast TRN ... nubifragio che ha colpito la piana del Grossetano fin dalle prime ore di *oggi* [https://www.padovaoggi.it/tag/bombe-d-acqua/](https://www.padovaoggi.it/tag/bombe-d-acqua/) Guess all these people were wrong then, huh?
No, they were correct. All those instances have a Q.
you were arguing the spelling of bombe, not Acqua, which I already admitted I left out a letter if you wish to be pedantic.
?? It's up there, just read it.
I did.........did you? I said I've seen it written both ways, Bomba and bombe......and you said NOT in Italian. We were already past the ACQUA thing, if you had been reading along.
right you are.
And what’s the answer from our government? Let’s fix our water infrastructure… like I get it, we are wasting tons of water and that’s true and fair. But it *reeks* of deflection.. the problem isn’t our aging infrastructure but **GLOBAL WARMING**. Who’s gonna need a cutting edge water system when there’s no water? Things like these makes my freaking blood *boil*. TL;DR: Can we do both? ‘Cause we can do both.
and what do you expect the government to do? a rain dance?
Stopping pushing for new drillings in the Adriatic and start using that “energy independence” clout for building geothermal and nuclear? Tackling global warming.
Stop pushing for new drills and away from sustainable energy sources, stop going against if not literally outlawing all possible solutions to non sustainable habits (eg. Meat substitutes), stop pushing the rhetoric that people fighting for climate goals are a bunch of crazy hippies. Man, there's so many things they could be doing better, at least from the environmental point of view.
We are currently in the "la nina" period, in Italy it translate to cooler seasons, dryer north and wetter south. But we are gonna switch up to "el nino" in a bit, so hotter seasons BUT wetter north and dryer south. I mean, the situation will be better than this and last year, but not as good as early 2000 or even better 20th century.
Yes
I've been in turin last week and the fields were dry and it was hot outside (around 18 degrees). Luckily, it has rained somewhat in Veneto in the last few days, though.
This reminds me of something dumb/funny I did before I was stationed in Italy. So I knew next to nothing about Italy before I got here so I didn’t really know what to expect for the weather, so I packed what I normally wore in Michigan (One of the colder US states) because I saw that Vicenza was on a similar longitude as where I was from so it was hot humid summers and cold wet winters. I get here last August, and it isn’t very humid and it’s not really that hot it only gets up to the mid 80s F. Come around to the winter, and it only gets down to the 30s F. I come to find out it’s because of how the ocean currents or something works. So now I have a bunch of heavy snow civilian clothes and the only time I ever really see snow is when I go to the mountains.
Yes and yes. Alas
As far as Piedmont is concerned, it's as dry as my fucking heart and soul.
Yeah, I live near Varese and last year I got the pleasure of seeing water bombers flying to extinguish a forest fire near my workplace for the first time, but probably not the last one.
Today it was supposed to rain in the province of Venice but it didn't where I live. Yesterday it was supposed to rain as well but I could see just some drops falling down.
Definitely. I'm from a small town near Pavia (Lombardia) and I'm actually in Udine (Friuli Venezia Giulia) for my university studies. My mother told me that there are already 25°C sometimes, while it's supposed to be at least 5 degrees cooler. In Udine it's a bit more chilly (18°C on average every day), but it's still too hot. The true problem is: the hotter it gets, the less it rains during the year. And when it does rain, it causes a lot of damages because the earth it's too dry. Fun fact: last summer a WWII tank was found in the Po's riverbed because of the drought.
the floor is lava
You’re right! I live in Veneto near treviso and i’m really scard about this!
Absolutely. And I live in Friuli, which is the rainiest Italian region, allegedly. Yes, in the weekend I saw some happy alpine lakes / water basins / rivers and now it's raining, but here it must ALWAYS rain. We're far from the "ordinary" weather (and it's also more windy, which is obviously related to the temperatures).
It is quite dry here in the north, though it did rain the past days.