It looks like the historically warm period is coming to an end in much of Europe and autumn is slowly approaching. As Severe Weather Europe informs, the first front will already cross the northern part of the Mediterranean and the Alps during the night from Sunday to Monday. Possibility of strong thunderstorms, and from Monday morning floods are possible in the north of Italy, in Slovenia and Austria.

A colder air mass will arrive in central Europe late next week, which could bring severe weather, further flooding and a solid amount of snow in the Alps.

Interestingly, heavy rainfall will also hit the Sahara desert, where more than 500% of normal monthly rainfall could fall across most of the Western Sahara in September. If this happens, parts of the desert will turn green.

The warmer the seas, the more extreme and heavy the rainfall will be

These two waves, low over western Europe and tropical in northwest Africa, will affect the air mass track, which could bring warm and significantly moist air north of the Mediterranean and into central Europe in the coming days, leading to bad weather and possible flooding.

Humidity levels and rainfall amounts until mid-September will also be influenced by an extreme marine heat wave, combined with the still unusually warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Namely, the global seas, the seas across Europe, and especially the Mediterranean Sea, have warmed significantly after the large and long-lasting summer heat waves.

Seas across Europe at the beginning of September are still extremely warm, especially in the Baltic, northern and Mediterranean regions. These include the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian Seas, the Adriatic Sea, the Ionian Sea and the Aegean Sea, where water temperatures are about 4-6 °C higher than average. The warmer the seas, the greater the likelihood of more extreme and heavy rainfall.

Danger of floods

By Monday morning, the cold front will reach southern and central Italy and the southern part of the Adriatic, affecting the countries of the western Balkan peninsula. After that, there will be a short lull, and at the end of the week, a significantly colder corridor of air masses will re-establish over Europe.

Such weather conditions are the perfect recipe for an extended period of excessive rainfall and a high risk of potential flooding across the region. Considering that the first front that will last today and tomorrow will be short-lived, it will not affect the sea temperature much.

This means that at the end of next week another system could bring even more rain to the north of Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia. Past experience tells us that we should carefully monitor the development of situations due to possible floods.

Next weekend will see much colder weather with temperatures of 8 to 12°C, below average for mid-September. The western half of Europe will be much colder than usual. This cold wave could lead to the first significant snowfall in the Alps.