Italy's third heatwave of the summer is set to arrive on Sunday, bringing record temperatures and immediately replacing the second to deny the nation a moment of respite.
The new heatwave is forecast to peak on Tuesday, when temperatures in areas of southern Sardinian may reach 48° Celsius, according to forecasts.
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The temperature in Rome is forecast to reach 41°C on Monday and 43° on Tuesday, beating the record of 40.7° set last summer.
Exceptionally high temperatures are also forecast for the rest of the country.
On Saturday 15 major Italian cities are on red alert, meaning that the heat is so intense it poses a threat to the whole population, not just groups such as the elderly, the clinically vulnerable and very young children.
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They are Bologna, Campobasso, Florence, Frosinone, Latina, Perugia, Pescara, Rieti, Rome, Viterbo. Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Civitavecchia and Messina.
Palermo will join them on Sunday.
A study coordinated by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and published in the Nature Medicine journal this week estimated that over 18,000 people died in Italy due to the intense heat the nation endured last summer.
Scientists say the climate crisis caused by human greenhouse gas emissions is making extreme weather events such as heat waves, drought, supercharged storms and flooding more frequent and more intense.