After a long wet and cool spring, Italy this summer can expect fair weather with mostly clear skies and see-saw temperatures, experts predict.
''It will not be a wet summer but people should expect major jumps in temperatures with heat waves alternating with sharp drops,'' observed Giampiero Maracchi, of the National Research Council's weather institute in Florence.
''Over the last ten years, the movement of air masses has changed significantly, both in regard to frequency and positions,'' the expert explained.
''We have just experienced an example of this with a winter which extended practically up to only a few days ago due to the persistence of a Siberian high pressure system, while the anticyclone of the Azores, which ushers in the summer, formed only recently, almost two months late,'' Maracchi said.
Looking ahead to the summer, the expert predicted that ''we won't see the record rain of recent months and the high temperatures should hold. We can expect several heat waves, with thermometers over 35C for several days, but these will alternative with brusque drops in temperatures due to cool air from the west''.
Holiday goers will be able to count on stable summer weather throughout July and into the beginning of August, ''when the Azores anticyclone will begin to buckle and allow in Atlantic fronts which will bring cooler temperatures and showers after the middle of the month,'' Maracchi said.
Thanks to the abundant spring rains, Italy this year will avoid any risk of drought, he added.
