2024 increasingly likely to be the hottest year ever Sicily, heat wave risk in Palermo

It is "increasingly likely" that 2024 will be the hottest year ever recorded, despite the fact that July ended the series of 13 consecutive records and the climate phenomenon called 'El Niño' also ended. This was announced today by the European observatory Copernicus. With a monthly global average of 16.91°C, last month was both the second warmest July and the second warmest month ever recorded, ranking just 0.04°C below the July 2023 record, the observatory explained in its bulletin.

Meanwhile, today the regional civil protection of Sicily issued a warning valid until midnight: fire and heat wave risk. "In Palermo, an alert level classified as orange (pre-alert) and a maximum perceived temperature ranging between 36 and 37 °C are expected," says the Civil Protection.

In the province of Foggia, on the other hand, the damage caused by the drought is estimated. "The drought and the inadequacy of the territory's water-irrigation infrastructure will make a decisive contribution to reducing tomato harvests by 40 per cent, with enormous damage for farmers. Cereal production has already collapsed, but losses are and will be heavy in the coming months for the olive, fruit and vegetable and livestock sectors as well,' he said. Thus the president of the Capitanata (Foggia) farmers' association, Angelo Miano.

For the farmers of Capitanata, it is necessary to work on the implementation of three major works: 'the most important is the construction of a pipeline of only 10 kilometres to bring some of the 200 million cubic metres of water that - annually - flow into the sea from the Liscione dam, in Molise, to the tomato plantations in the Foggia area.