with the arrival of Nina storms become increasingly stronger in the world and will also have effects in Italy

The last few months have been characterized by the global climate phenomenon known as “El Niño”: since June 2023 it has caused, in combination with anthropogenic global warming, record temperatures, both at sea level and at ocean level.

Now, however, this phenomenon is ready to give way in view of summer season: as indicated by the latest forecasts from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) of NOAA, already since May 2024, sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies have been well below climate averages in most of the equatorial Pacific Ocean; this is the signal that another phenomenon is about to begin, the one known as la Nina.
It indicates a cooling of surface water temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean which frequently influences the climate of our planet, with various consequences also in Europe and Italy as it manages to modify the planetary circulation of large atmospheric figures. The map below highlights the negative anomaly (in blue) right on the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America.

Statistically, in the presence of this particular event we witness a increase in precipitation In the Southeast Asiain some parts ofAfricain Brazil (where there are already some terrible floods) and in Australia. At the same time it involves significant dry phases in the Western AmericasIn the Gulf of Mexico and in theNortheast Africa.
Not only, one of the most dangerous consequences of La Niña in the world is linked to the occurrence of storms in the Atlantic sector. In fact, it generates more favorable conditions for the formation of Hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin, in particular due to the weaker wind gradient at altitude and greater atmospheric instability. These conditions not only favor more numerous, but also longer-lasting hurricanes, thus posing a greater risk of impact on American lands.

This type of phenomenon, which once practically only affected the oceans, is also increasingly forming in the Mediterranean (Mediterranean Hurricane), with potential consequences that also closely concern our Italy. the risk, for our country, is to have extreme events such as storms and in the most exceptional cases the so-called “flash floods” which usually affect narrow areas of territory (as happened in Tuscany and Romagna in 2023, in Ischia and the Marche in 2022 and in 2021 in Sicily, just to mention the most recent ones), discharging large quantities of water to the ground.
A potentially very dangerous situation. In concrete terms, in the coming months, according to the latest updates from Central Europe, we could still have long dry phases, however interrupted by these particularly intense storms.