WeatherFanatics: High Flood Threat for Italy and Western Balkans

Thursday, November 6, 2014

High Flood Threat for Italy and Western Balkans

By Eric Leister, Meteorologist

November 6,2014; 9:07PM,EST

Flooding remains a concern across Italy and the western parts of the Balkan Peninsula as a potent storm system sits stubbornly over the region.
The storm has already been responsible for heavy rain and flooding from southern France to northern Italy and western Austria with snow burying parts of the Alps.
The storm will churn in the vicinity of Sicily through Friday, delivering rounds of locally heavy rain to southern and eastern Italy as well as places from central Austria to western Greece.
Many communities will receive 50-100 mm (2-4 inches) of rain with localized higher totals.

Flash flooding is a concern, especially where the storm has already oversaturated the ground. Enough rain could fall in some places to make landslides possible.
In addition to the rain, locally damaging winds will spread along the southernmost coast of Italy through Thursday night. It is not out of the question for another isolated tornado to touch down along the southern coast of Sicily and eastward to Crotone, Italy, through early Thursday evening.
The storm already delivered tremendous rainfall to parts of southern France, southern Switzerland, northern Italy, western Austria, western Slovenia and northwestern Croatia.
Rainfall in excess of 175 mm (7 inches) inundated Nice, France. Kotschach, Austria, picked up more than 300 mm (a foot) of rain from Tuesday through Thursday morning. At the same time, 265 mm (10.44 inches) soaked Cevio, Switzerland.
Warning: The video below may have explicit language in Italian.

The above video shows rescue workers wading through waist-high water in the streets of Carrara, Italy, which will welcome drier weather starting on Thursday.
As rain inundated the lower elevations, heavy snow buried the higher elevations of the Alps.
At Andermatt, Switzerland, rain in excess of 100 mm (4 inches) at the start of the storm changed over to 91 cm (36 inches) of snow from Wednesday through Wednesday night.
Andermatt sits at an elevation of 1,442 meters (4,731 feet).
The heaviest snow has tapered off across Switzerland with drier air also working into northwestern Italy.
More of Italy will dry out on Saturday; however, a second surge of moisture will bring the threat for torrential rainfall into northeast Italy, southern Austria and Slovenia on Saturday.
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This rainfall on top of what falls in the days leading up to Saturday may trigger river flooding and a continued high threat for mudslides.
Another potent storm system next week will take a similar track to the current storm, which could bring another round of flooding from southern France to Italy and the western Balkan Peninsula.
Meteorologists Courtney Spamer and Kristina Pydynowski contributed to this story.

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