From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
https://news.italy24.press/local/720566.html
There have been claims of 47C temperatures in Palermo, Sicily yesterday, but they need qualifying.
Firstly, as the above report notes, the temperatures there have boosted by the foehn effect:
The exceptionality of the event – of a historical nature also on a synoptic scale for large sectors of the Mediterranean – is favored by subsidence impressed by the geopotential maxima of the subtropical anticyclone, by a further intensification of the influx of air masses from the Sahara desert (up to 29-30°C in free atmosphere at 850 hPa) and from interaction between the southern currents and the orography of the Palermo mountains.
Put simply, Palermo lies to the north of the mountains, so southerly winds mean sinking air over the city. The foehn effect is known to add several degrees to underlying temperatures.
Secondly, the weather station at the airport, which has a long record, only measured 44C.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/italy/palermo/historic
This suggests that the urbanisation effect is 3C, as the 47C claim comes from the middle of the city:
All in all, claims of a record temperature of 47C have little climatological significance at all.
For more on Heat Waves and other aspects of Earth’s temperature, go to EverythingClimate.com.
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