As the oceans rise and warm up, Italy, like states and cities along the U.S. East Coast, is becoming aware of the increased threat of ocean-generated storms. Up to now, the most violent storms it has had to face have been periodic tornados. One, in fact, hit the unfortunate city of Taranto only a couple of weeks ago.
An article in today's La Repubblica reports that weather scientists in Europe, analyzing conditions in the Mediterranean, now think that warmer water is aggravating the intensity of storms and some of these may now deserve to be termed hurricanes. With this in mind, Italian weather experts have reinterpreted several earlier storms. For example, in 2006 one with wind of 145 km/hr (90 mph) did major damage in Salento, near the west coast, south of Salerno. (A category one hurricane has winds of at least 119 km/h or 74 mph.)
The possibility of more such storms raises concerns for areas along the coasts.
For example, a hurricane-strength storm could return low-lying areas along the coasts, like the Agro Pontino south of Rome, to their former condition as marsh lands. Like their colleagues in the U.S., Italian analysts and engineers are just beginning to think about protective measures.
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