Since May 15th the system has restarted prediction of bioclimatic discomfort in Emilia-Romagna to predict, three days in advance, the arrival of any heat waves. This year the service presents new information and additional potential. The innovations concern in particular theobserved daily trend of the Thom index which has been extended to all provinces (previously it was only represented for the regional capital). The forecast system is active every day until September 15th, including Saturday and Sunday.
Arpae’s service is used by healthcare facilities in the region to activate the procedures essential to guarantee an adequate response in hospital facilities and the provision of home services for the most vulnerable and at-risk people. Every day the Agency issues a bulletin which, for each province, makes differentiated forecasts available for the urban areas of the capital, for the flat, hilly and mountainous areas (if present). For the same areas of the provincial territory and for the entire region, the observed data of the Thom index are available. The progress of the current season is represented on a dynamic graph that also shows new features: the average of the years from 2003 up to the year preceding the current one; the reference levels (no discomfort, weak discomfort, discomfort and strong discomfort) and the possibility of making useful comparisons with other significant years.
To achieve all this, Arpae consolidated the data structure and carried out additional development and processing activities both to strengthen and renew the service and to make it more transparent to citizens: the new observational database is in fact also accessible on the open data portal of the Agency https://dati.arpae.it/dataset/erg5-interpolazione-su-griglia-di-dati-meteo
General director Giuseppe Bortone declared: “Having strengthened this system is significant because it confirms our commitment to activities that ensure environmental protection for the health and well-being of people in Emilia-Romagna”
Arpae’s forecasting system also powers the national alarm forecasting system activated every year in the summer season by the Ministry of Health, with the technical-scientific support of the Epidemiology Department of the Lazio SSR, Competence Center of the Civil Protection Department. Go to national bulletin
to know more
- Visit the website “Heat risk” which also contains useful advice for dealing with hot summer days, health information and documentation.
- The heat wave warning and forecasting system in our region has been active since 2004 and involves the regional health service, Arpae Emilia-Romagna, the municipalities and voluntary associations. The Emilia-Romagna Region supplies every year specific guidelines to mitigate the effects of heat waves on the most fragile people and at risk of complications.
- Insights into the observational basis of the data used
It consists of the analysis on a 5 km resolution grid and contains temperatures (2001-present), precipitation (1991-present), relative humidity, wind, solar radiation (different periodicities). It can be used for climate analyzes of limited periods, but with high spatial resolution; not suitable for evaluating temporal trends as they are influenced by the variation in station density. High spatial accuracy for precipitation and temperature, medium for relative humidity. Go to the observational database on open data: https://dati.arpae.it/dataset/erg5-interpolazione-su-griglia-di-dati-meteo
