Italy's Sicily Region May Have Recorded Europe's Highest Ever Temperature At 48.8 Degrees Celsius

The world's biggest threat appears to be climate change, and we are seeing the evidence of it, time and again. Wildfires, floods, heatwaves and other natural catastrophes, planet earth is facing it all.

If you needed any more reason to be worried, this is it. The Italian island of Sicily may have set an all-time heat record for Europe, hitting a temperature of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

AFP

The previous hottest temperature 48 degrees Celsius was recorded in Athens in 1977 by the World Meteorological Organisation(WMO), BBC reported. The current readings which were recorded by local authorities need to be corroborated by the WMO.

The latest heatwave in Italy is being caused by an anticyclone - nicknamed Lucifer - moving up from Africa. Anticyclones are areas of high atmospheric pressure where the air is sinking.

Meteorologists in June had predicted temperatures in Italy's southern areas would rise to 44 or 45 degrees Celsius amid the heatwave.

AFP

The Mediterranean heatwave, which has seen some countries record their highest temperatures in decades, has led to the spread of wildfires across southern Italy, with Sicily, Calabria and Puglia the worst-hit regions.

As per BBC, Italian firefighters on Wednesday said they had been involved in 300 operations in Sicily and Calabria over a 12-hour period, battling through the night to control blazes burning thousands of acres of land.

They said the situation was now ¡°under control¡± on the island.

The fires have had a fatal impact with as many as four deaths being linked to wildfires over the past week.

Reuters

Fuelled by hot weather, fires have erupted across southern Europe in recent weeks with huge damage to the landscape on the Italian island of Sardinia.

In Greece, many villages on the Peloponnese Peninsula were evacuated on Wednesday as exhausted firefighters battled wildfires for a ninth consecutive day.

At the other end of the Mediterranean, fires tore through forested areas of northern Algeria on Wednesday, killing at least 65 people, state television reported.