Brontoskopos

A dangerous, prolonged heat spike is the whole story this week. The upper pattern is technically “zonal” but that zonal flow is breaking down, and 500 hPa heights are running about 52 m above average — enough to let temperatures build well past the mid-30s day after day. This isn’t a case of a ridge parked overhead so much as the flow aloft losing its grip and letting heat build in from below; either way, the result on the ground is the same: five to seven straight days flirting with 38-39°C. The week’s average rating comes out to just 1.1 out of 10 — about as bad as this scoring gets, and honestly that’s the fairest summary of the whole outlook.

Last week’s outlook ran a bit too warm, for what it’s worth: Monday the 27th was called for a high near 33.5°C and only reached 30.9°C, and Tuesday the 28th was forecast at 33.7°C but topped out at 30.7°C — both about 3°C cooler than expected. There’s no such relief in sight this time; if anything the signal for extreme heat this week is stronger and more consistent across the guidance than that recent miss would suggest.

Every single day this week carries a rating of 1 or 2 out of 10, and it’s the heat alone doing that — dewpoints in the high teens to low 20s aren’t themselves the issue, it’s thermometer highs near or above 38°C and feels-like values that push into the low-to-mid 40s on a few afternoons. Isolated afternoon storms, the kind that fire off the Apennines and Alps in a typical summer pattern, look possible several days but they’re the sideshow, not the story — don’t expect them to meaningfully break the heat.

Thursday (37-24) — 1/10: Oppressive, likely near 37°C with the airmass already about 5.5°C above the late-July average — miserable heat, plain and simple.

Friday (39-25) — 1/10: Confidence is low here and guidance splits hard on the peak, anywhere from 37°C to 42°C; humid and brutally hot either way, with feels-like readings pushing past 40°C.

Saturday (39-24) — 1/10: Likely near 38°C but feels-like values run notably higher, around 42°C — an isolated storm or two can’t be ruled out in the afternoon, but that’s cold comfort against heat like this.

Sunday (38-24) — 2/10: Humid and likely near 37-38°C, with an isolated storm or two possible off the hills; still oppressively hot by any measure.

Monday (38-23) — 1/10: Likely near 38°C, feels-like closer to 40°C, humid air in place; an isolated storm can’t be ruled out but the heat is the headline.

Tuesday (38-24) — 1/10: Similar story — likely near 38°C with feels-like near 40.5°C, humid, isolated storms possible late day.

Wednesday (38-24) — 1/10: Little change to close the week: likely near 37-38°C, feels-like near 40°C, humid, with an isolated storm chance in the afternoon.

Week two

The extended signal, while still low-confidence this far out, hints at the pattern gradually easing rather than breaking outright: the upper flow is described as building back toward more typical zonal character with the jet returning nearby, and the temperature anomaly signal fades from roughly 5.5°C above average early in that period down to around 1.6-2.0°C above average by day 12. Ensemble ranges stay wide — tmax spreads on the order of 27-38°C on any given day 8-14 — so specific days aren’t worth pinning down yet. Rain chances stay modest but non-trivial, with precipitation probabilities in the 13-25% range and 12-27% of ensemble members bringing measurable precipitation depending on the day; nothing here reads as a clean, reliable break in the heat, just a slow trend toward something closer to normal.

Tl;dr: This is a genuinely dangerous, multi-day heat stretch with highs repeatedly near 37-39°C and feels-like values often higher still, so plan for serious heat mitigation all week rather than hoping for relief.

The fortnight at a glance

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Weather data by Open-Meteo.com. Models: ecmwf_ifs025, icon_seamless, gfs_seamless, meteofrance_seamless, best_match. Generated 2026-07-29 08:20 EDT. This is a hobby forecast, not a substitute for official ARPAE / Protezione Civile warnings.