A dry winter and exceptionally wet summer means 2022 is likely to be the hottest and driest year on record for Italy, according to the National Research Council. Between January and July, temperatures were 0.98C above average. However, in July, temperatures were more than 2 degrees Celsius above average – second only to July 2003. “If 2022 ended now, it would be the hottest year ever,” Michele Brunetti of the National Research Council told the Ansa news agency. Northern Italy has been hardest hit, with the Po River at extremely low levels and high temperatures leading to the collapse of part of a glacier in the Dolomites that killed 11 hikers.
