Bad weather, tension at the Murazzi in Turin
Italy split between bad weather, hail and record heat. And the country is losing tourists
Hail in the North, damage in Romagna But in Syracuse there are 46 degrees, in Sardinia 44 and for Sunday 23 July there is a heat alert in different cities. While in others, such as Milan, the alert is on thunderstorms after there was even a whirlwind in recent days. The consequences are very negative not only from the point of view of crops or safety, but also of tourism.
As reported by the Republic, “Italy is losing its appeal. The increasingly violent and persistent heat waves will force Italians — and foreigners — to rethink the summer holidays. Moving them to the Northern countries. Or towards spring and autumn. Or both”. And adds Repubblica: “A survey conducted in May by the European Travel Commission, which brings together over 30 national tourism bodies, including ENIT, highlighted, among Europeans, a 10 percent drop, compared to 2022, in travel intentions to Mediterranean Europe, for the June-November period”.
Hot: Coldiretti, burns fruit and vegetables with damage up to 90%
The caldo torrido is “burning” the fruit and vegetables in the fields with burns that cause the loss of the crop which in some companies reaches 90%, from peppers to melons, from watermelons to grapes, from tomatoes to aubergines. This is the alarm raised by Coldiretti in relation to the wave of heat that is sweeping Italy with consequences on people but also on farms and crops spared by bad weather and hail that hit northern Italy in a patchy way with millions of euros of damage in the countryside.
Throughout the boot, the grip of the heat, underlines the largest association representing and assisting Italian agriculture, is doing patchy damage with farmers trying to run for cover by shading the products, even through grass and leaves as natural barriers. Heat burns – explains Coldiretti – irreversibly damage fruit and vegetables, to the point of making them unsellable. We try to anticipate the harvest when possible or at least we thin out the fruit on the trees, eliminating those that are not able to survive, to try to save at least part of the production.
The African heat these days – continues Coldiretti – also cuts the production of eggs, milk and honey. If there is a sharp drop in egg production in chicken coops, bees exhausted by the heat have stopped flying and no longer carry out the precious work of transporting nectar and pollen with a drop in the honey harvest estimated at 70% compared to last year.
With the thermometer above 40 degrees there are strong repercussions with the production of milk dropped by more than 10% for the cows in the stables while the sheep – underlines Coldiretti – are forced to migrate to the highlands to look for green pastures. Fans and cooling showers are running at full speed in the stables.
The African heat wave – underlines Coldiretti – is the tip of the iceberg of the anomalies of this crazy 2023 which – continues Coldiretti – has been marked, up to now, first by a severe drought that has compromised the crops in the field and then for a few months by the multiplication of extreme weather events, abundant rainfall and low temperatures and finally by the torrid heat of July with damage to agriculture and rural infrastructures that will exceed 6 billion last year, of which over 1 billion only due to the flood in Romagna.
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