First peak of the African blaze in the next few hours: those affected by the heat wave will be Sardinia - with peaks of up to 42°C -, Sicily with 40-41°C, Calabria, Puglia and central Italy with 39 °C.

While between tomorrow and Saturday, violent storms will arrive in the north.

«In the last 30 years the African anticyclone has appeared much more often in Italy which has found itself faced with a new climate with frequent North African blazes, even with desert sand, alternating with violent thunderstorms, the new summer climate of the 21st century - explains Andrea Garbinato of iLMeteo.it - The North African "breath" first pushes the high pressure towards the heart of central Europe and then makes it deflate towards our central-south - underlines Garbinato - in this way northern Italy remains exposed favoring the passage of unstable Atlantic air. This flow, finding pre-existing hot and above all very humid air, triggers violent thunderstorms especially in the Alps and locally encroachment towards the Po Valley".

Between tomorrow and Saturday morning this will be exactly the situation: violent storms are expected in the north with a potentially dangerous passage from west to east. «At the moment - adds the expert - a first unstable phase is expected on the morning of Friday 12th in the far north-west; from the afternoon, then, the showers will also affect part of the north-east with the main phase of the bad weather expected between the evening of Friday and the morning of Saturday, especially north of the Po river. In the rest of Italy the African anticyclone will still be overbearing and few will notice the bad weather in the north, if not for a slight drop in temperature and greater ventilation from the west. From Saturday afternoon, however, the African breath will unfortunately return to be forceful, indeed very forceful: 37-38°C awaits us all the way in Rome too, for at least 10 days, a heat wave which, if confirmed, could be one of the longest of recent years", concludes Garbinato.

(Unioneonline)