Everything seemed ready for the definitive arrival of spring, but winter isn’t there and is making its presence felt again. In the next few days, Italy will be affected by a clear worsening: temperatures dropping by up to 6-7 degrees, bad weather in the South and an outbreak of cold air from the Balkans.
What’s happening
The scene will be governed by the combination of two elements: a cyclone positioned between Libya and Sicily and a flow of continental air arriving from the east. The Mediterranean vortex will maintain conditions of strong instability in the southern regions until Tuesday evening, with intense rainfall in Sicily, Calabria, Basilicata and Puglia. In the meantime, the Balkan air will reach the rest of the Peninsula, causing temperatures to drop especially at night in the North, with the risk of late frosts in the valleys and mountainous areas – a real danger for the agricultural sector.
The peak between Wednesday and Thursday
The most critical moment is expected between 18 and 19 March, when the snow will fall again on the central-southern Apennines up to altitudes of 900-1000 metres. In Abruzzo and Molise the flakes could even reach up to 600-700 metres. The North, on the contrary, will remain in a dry and stable regime, with clear skies favored by eastern ventilation, except for some snowfall in the western Alps and the Emilian Apennines.
The forecast day by day
The trend: the weekend promises to be rainy at times, with thunderstorms expected in Sicily and Calabria coinciding with the spring equinox.
What is a “cold drop” and why it can bring bad weather to Italy
In meteorology we talk about cold drop when a mass of air much colder than the surrounding environment separates from a larger area of low pressure at altitude. This pocket of air, which can extend for several hundred kilometers, remains isolated and trapped above a certain region of the atmosphere, giving rise to an autonomous depression vortex.
When it forms, the cold drop tends to destabilize the atmosphere, especially in the areas of contact with areas dominated by high pressure. The contrast between air masses with different characteristics favors the creation of clouds, rain and thunderstorms, with phenomena that can be locally intense. In Italy this type of configuration is not uncommon, especially in the transition towards the warmer season, when thermal contrasts become more marked.
In the case of these days, the cold air mass will detach itself from the vast depression area present over central-eastern Europe and will move towards the central Mediterranean between today and tomorrow. Once positioned over the Italian area, the cold drop could fuel atmospheric instability and favor worsening of the weather in several regions.
