A town in Italy just got 60 percent of its annual rainfall in 12 hours

published 6 October 2021

Rossiglione, a town in Italy's Liguria province near Genoa, got 29.2 inches of rain in 12 hours over Monday and Tuesday, nearly 60 percent of its 50-inch annual rainfall. Typically, that part of Italy gets 6 to 7 inches of rain in all of October, The Washington Post reports. That sets a new European record for most rainfall in a 12-hour period, climatologists said.

The system of thunderstorms that hovered over the Italian Riviera also set an Italian record with 19.5 inches of rain in six hours in the town of Cairo Montenotte, 22 miles west of Rossiglione. And Vicomorasso, about halfway between those two towns, got 7.1 inches of rain in one hour during the storm. "For comparison, that's more than double the 3.15 inches that fell during the record-setting one-hour cloudburst that overwhelmed New York City on Sept. 1 as the remnants of Hurricane Ida passed," the Post notes.

The deluge caused flooding in the port city of Savona and prompted Genoa to close parks and schools on Monday, The Associated Press reports. Temperatures were about 10 degrees warmer than average before the storm, the Post explains, and climate scientists have found that higher temperatures make rainstorms wetter and more severe. Along with the extreme rainfall in the U.S. Northeast, last summer saw flooding in Germany, Central Europe, and China.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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