The meteorological picture also in Cremona has undergone a marked worsening. The bad weather is due to the presence of a deep cyclonic vortex located off the southern coast of the United Kingdom, which is moving towards France, driven by humid and unstable ocean currents. Following these air masses, as the experts at Meteo.it say, a disturbance full of bad weather, expected at least until tomorrow, May 16th. This night and this morning there were several floods in the city including that of the underpass in via Eridano, which is often even closed after the incessant rain.
Hail sowing for corn and rice, barley and wheat at risk of asphyxiation, lawns damaged by too much rain and tomato transplants blocked. This is what emerges from a monitoring by Coldiretti Lombardia, in the countryside submerged in water, on the effects of the new wave of bad weather that is affecting the region. Very difficult situation between Milanese and Lodigiano – specifies Coldiretti Lombardia – where in some areas there have already been over 100 millimeters of cumulative rainfall in the last 12 hours according to Arpa data and the surveys carried out by the farmers themselves. “It’s a disaster – declares Marco Curtarelli, cereal grower from Castelnuovo Bocca d’Adda, in the Lower Lodi area -. From tonight to this morning at 10am at least 170 millimeters of water fell: for now the wheat and barley are still standing, but in many areas the plants are already yellow, suffocated by too much water. Whoever sowed the corn will have to throw everything away and start again. I have pallets of seeds still on the farm completely intact and I don’t know when I will be able to use them.” I had already sown about 30 hectares of dry rice, today they are all submerged – says Gabriele Noè, cereal grower from Noviglio, in the western area of the Milan metropolitan area -. I still have more than 100 hectares to sow but with these latest rains I don’t even know when I will be able to go in and do the first work. The barley I had in the field, however, is now dying from too much water. Around here I also look at the wheat, but they are scary: there are entire fields completely yellow. A dramatic situation.”
Even in the province of Pavia – continues Coldiretti Lombardia – the new wave of bad weather aggravates the delay in rice sowing. Due to the continuous rains – explains Coldiretti – the tractors are unable to enter the field for processing, and this could lead to both a postponement of the harvests and a decrease in the hectares cultivated. If the adverse weather conditions continue, farmers will not be able to work and sow the rice fields in time and will be forced to change cultivation, with negative consequences also in terms of profitability. In the province of Cremona, farmers already forced to delay corn sowing due to the bad weather of recent weeks are now faced with the need to start all over again. With tomato transplants blocked, problems are also being recorded regarding lawns requiring mowing and the growth of autumn-winter cereals.
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