In the collective imagination, Easter and Easter Monday are synonymous with the arrival of spring and the desire to be outdoors, regardless of whether they fall in the month of March or April.
Spring, however, is characterized by a marked meteorological variability; analyzing the data of the Easter days from 1990 to 2023 in Genoa, we see how the weather was variable overall, with often clear alternation between clear and overcast over the course of the two days.
From a climatological point of view, Easter in fact falls in the context of a still uncertain spring season, usually characterized by a second peak of precipitation (after the more intense one of the autumn period) and temperatures gradually recovering due to the lengthening of the hours of light. However, fresh continental or northern returns are not surprising – like the one we are experiencing in recent days – which represent the last ‘hits of winter’.
In this seasonal context, weather characterized by meteorological variability typical of March and April dominates: only on 6 occasions (in the years 1991, 1992 and 1997, 2004, 2017 and 2022) were the days of Easter and Easter Monday characterized by stable and clear, while it rained 6 times (in 2000, 2003, 2005, 2010, 2016 and 2019).
In the interval considered, there were a dozen “low” Easters that fall in a period similar to that of 2024, and highlight, between Easter and Easter Monday, 15 mostly sunny days and 9 more uncertain ones (6 very cloudy or overcast and 3 cloudy). Among these, curiously, the worst Easters both fell on March 27: in 2005 26.6 mm of rain fell, in 2016 “only” 16.8.
To know what the weather will be like this Easter, you have to wait for the forecasts for the next few days….
Climatological commentary on the transition from winter to spring
In winter, Liguria is definitely affected either by the anticyclone stationing over Central Europe, or by the so-called “leeward” (or “Gulf of Genoa”) depressions.
Thus we have two more frequent types of time, with opposite characteristics.
When the anticyclone predominates, the days are clear, transparent or little cloudy, the temperatures are quite low, the winds are cold from the east.
If, on the other hand, depressions are the protagonists, there is abundant rainfall and high cloud cover; the weather tends to improve when the depressions evolve towards the South East, often followed by a lasting north wind current, which can blow for a day or two; the region is also affected by Fohen winds and, in the eastern part, by strong north-east winds, similar to the Bora.
At the beginning of spring the weather situation does not differ significantly from that of winter: the depressions of the Gulf of Genoa still predominate, which tend to move towards the Po Valley, thus causing heavy rainfall in the Apennine region, in a scenario sometimes alternating with more stable and drier figures , with eastern ventilation.
Only towards May does the summer anticyclonic type begin to assert itself, when the leeward depressions become rather rare and shallow due to the cumbersome presence of high pressure, which in recent years has increasingly taken on North African characteristics; however, especially in May, infiltrations of more humid and cooler air cannot be ruled out, with periods of rain at times.
