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Violent storms have been ravaging northern Italy for several days – heavy hail and rainfall are flooding the region. Particularly sensational: Supercells from thunderstorms that swept across northern Italy and Croatia caused exceptionally large hailstones to fall from the sky.

In the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, a woman apparently found a hailstone with a diameter of 19 centimeters – the size of her own hand. The Italian news site “Pordenone Today” published photos that sparked speculation on Twitter. Even meteorologists were surprised by the size of these and other hailstones. Some reports even spoke of a hailstone record.

The organization “European Severe Storms Laboratory” (ESSL), an association of scientists, wrote that the European hail record had been broken. The ESSL maintains a corresponding database on extreme weather in Europe.

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It”

Dutch meteorologist Pieter Groenemeiker tweeted about photos of other large hailstones: “I’ve never seen anything like it, not even up close. (…) Absolute madness.” His British colleague James Peacock suspected that two hailstones had merged into the 19-centimetre hailstone, which often occurs when particularly large hailstones are found.

French weather researcher Nahel Belgherze explained that extreme updrafts in the supercells over Italy would have favored the formation of large hailstones. Due to rapid upward and downward movements in the thundercloud, the hailstone freezes and thaws again and again and meets, simply put, water droplets, which make the hailstone bigger and bigger.

Bug destroyed by plane

The storms in northern Italy have already killed two people: a girl and a woman were killed by trees. Wind gusts, heavy rains and hail also flooded streets and fallen trees in Italy’s second largest city, Milan. Many trees fell on parked cars. Authorities also reported severe damage to the city’s power grid. In the old city, the water was temporarily cut off, an AFP journalist reported.

On the way from Milan to New York, a passenger plane was caught in a heavy hailstorm and turned around again – the bow was apparently completely destroyed.

heat in southern Italy

Meanwhile, southern Italy continues to groan under a heat wave. In Sicily, civil protection reported a maximum temperature of 47.6 degrees in Catania on Monday. Firefighters also continued to fight several wildfires, one of which came near Palermo airport on Tuesday. The airport was therefore closed for several hours in the morning. Rail traffic was also severely affected.

“We are experiencing one of the most complicated days in Italy in recent decades: floods, tornadoes and massive hail in the north, scorching heat and devastating fires in the south,” Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci wrote on Facebook. All people must change their “attitude” in view of climate changes in Italy, the minister added.

(t-online, dpa, lw)