Christmas with unprecedented heat for December and 2022 is starting to become the hottest year in history in Italy, at least since 1800, the year in which slightly more precise average measurements began. In fact, the last week of the year will be hot throughout the country and will increase the average temperature of 2022.
Mattia Gussoni, site meteorologist www.iLMeteo.it, recalls that impressive numbers have already been recorded with the African anticyclone, even in the last few days: at 6 in the morning, in the middle of winter and a few days before Christmas, the thermometers showed 15-17°C in the Centre-South, at dawn after a long winter night. These exceptional numbers, together with the highs above 20°C with peaks of 25° expected for Christmas and Boxing Day, together with the sea with water at 19°C, draw a typical weather picture for May, a picture out of the normal experience also last year.
In these last days of December, Italy recorded temperatures typical of Egypt, for example Olbia was hotter than Cairo.
For the near future, the forecasts do not allow for a glimpse of a change: it seemed that a cyclone could form for New Year’s Eve, but the models have changed the forecast: in meteorology it is frequent that the projection over 7 days is changed, the long-term trend is almost never the absolute truth but information to be managed as a general rule.
In fact, with the latest model releases, it seems that the Camel, as the African Anticyclone is pleasantly called in meteorological jargon, will accompany us until the beginning of 2023.
In practice, with the heat, the mirage of the Three Kings will also appear in Italy on camels, with spring temperatures for another week.
Getting serious, in detail, the forecasts will be monotonous: full sun in the mountains, on the Adriatic regions and in the South, gray skies in the Po Valley, Liguria and Upper Tuscany; abnormal heat. The protagonist of the coming days will only be the drizzle between Liguria and Tuscany, the only meteorological phenomenon in a situation defined by the forecasters as ‘absolute flatness’: in practice nothing will happen, the perturbations will be confined between Iceland and Scandinavia, while in the East the closest cyclone will be in Kazakhstan.
Last important note: with temperatures rising, pay attention to avalanches, the danger is significantly increasing in the Alps, don’t go off-piste on this hot Christmas weekend.
THE WEATHER FORECAST
Saturday 24. In the north: clouds in the plains, sun in the mountains. In the centre: low clouds scattered along the Tyrrhenian side, beautiful elsewhere. In the south: sunny and warm for the period.
Sunday 25. In the north: gray in the plains, drizzle in Liguria, beautiful in the mountains. In the middle: clouds in Tuscany, better elsewhere. In the south: sunny and warm for the period.
Monday 26. In the north: gray in the plains, rain in Liguria, beautiful in the mountains. In the middle: clouds in Tuscany, better elsewhere. In the south: sunny and warm for the period.
Trend: African anticyclone undisturbed at least until New Year 2023.
Hot from Christmas to New Year’s Eve, 2022 record year for weather in Italy