The first coldwave of the winter has brought snow at low levels and in some areas (especially on the south of the Po valley) on the plains. Overall, temperatures have decreased towards value below the average, especially in central-northern Italy. The maximum temperatures observed on Sunday (Figure1, when most of the snow occurred) where below 5 °C in all N. Italy (except the Ligurian coast), Tuscany and Umbria. On the Alps and N. Appennines maximum temperatures were below 0°C. In central-southern Italy, the temperatures reached values between 10-13 °C and only in Sicily and Sardinia mild conditions were still observed (14-17 °C).
Snowfall has occurred mainly between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning due to a low-pressure system moving westward from France and colder air coming from the Balkans. However, only in few areas (mainly in Emilia Romagna) few centimeters of snow have been observed, instead elsewhere the precipitation was too weak to lead to some accumulation.
This is the first coldwave of the season, after the first 10 days of December when temperatures above the average have been observed. The next few days (until Friday, when milder air coming from the Atlantic should cause an increase in temperatures especially in central-southern Italy) will see still cold air coming from the east (though not as cold as the previous one) with minimum temperatures below 0°C especially in the areas with snow at the ground and maximum values slightly below or close to the average mostly everywhere. This will contribute to reduce the significant positive anomaly observed until last week.
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