Italy braced for red alerts with heatwave set to reach 48°C

Four cities are set to be on ‘red alert’ on Tuesday (Picture: EPA/Getty)

Italy will put various cities on ‘red alert’ for extreme weather this week, with the country set to come close to breaking its record temperature.

As the region bakes in a deadly heatwave, forecasters say the hot weather could reach 48°C in some areas, prompting the authorities to issue wildfire and health warnings.

It comes amid devastating wildfires in Greece, Turkey and other parts of the Mediterranean – and as scientists issued a landmark warning about the ‘code red’ scale of the climate crisis.

Four cities in Italy will be put on red alert on Tuesday and eight on Wednesday, the Italian agency Ansa reported.

It said locals forecasters predicted temperatures could reach 47-48°C in parts of southern Italy and on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia later this week.

As well as the two islands, the southern region of Abruzzo have already been scorched by wildfires this summer.

By Wednesday, 13 cities including Milan, Florence and Bologna will be under ‘amber’ alerts.

Italy has already seen wildfires this summer, including this one in Catania, Sicily (Picture: Reuters)

Devastating blazes have been a familiar site across much of southern Europe this summer (Picture: Reuters)

Crowds enjoyed the heatwave in Capri, southern Italy, on Monday (Picture: EPA)

Amber alerts mean signal that the weather ‘may have adverse effects on the health of the population, particularly in susceptible population subgroups’, while red alerts warn that those high risk conditions could remain for more than three days, the Local reported.

Experts say the heatwaves already seen in the country this year have been exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, rare summer flooding submerged Venice’s famed Piazza San Marco in up to a metre of water overnight on Sunday.

There was unusually high water in Venice on Sunday night (Picture: Reuters)

People waded through St Mark’s square with their shoes in hand (Picture: Reuters)

The lagoon city is often hit by so-called ‘acqua alta’ (high water) in autumn and winter, and devastating floods in November 2019 caused hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

Sunday night’s event was far less damaging and even saw couples in the square dance to piano music almost knee deep in the water.

Children were seen splashing around to cool off and tourists waded through, shoes in hand.

The high water incidents are caused by a combination of factors including rising sea levels, high tides and land subsidence, which has caused the ground level of the city to sink.

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