Drought: it is the driest spring of the last 60 years

We are experiencing the driest spring of the past 60 years. At national level, 60% of precipitation is missing. This was revealed by the analysis of Meteo Expert-Meteo.it, according to which the first half of the meteorological spring, that is the period between the beginning of March and the middle of April, was decidedly stingy with rain. The absence of rains in recent weeks is exacerbating the drought problem that has dragged on since the beginning of the year: from January to today our country has received just over half of the rain that should normally fall, with strong repercussions also on the extent of lakes and rivers. Italy has lacked the volume of rain equal to the entire Lake Como. "For now it is the highest negative spring anomaly of the last 60 years - explains Simone Abelli, meteorologist of Meteo Expert -. The regions of Northern Italy are the most proven, with an anomaly of -70%, but also the Central and Southern regions, where the rainfall deficit is 59% and 41% respectively ". "At national level - he adds - the anomaly is -44%, just over half the norm. Since the beginning of the year, 23.4 billion cubic meters of water have been missing, the volume of Lake Como". The northern regions suffer the most once again, where the anomaly is -47%, for a total of 8.9 billion cubic meters of water less than the average. "The most critical area seems to be Piedmont - comments Abelli -. In Turin since the beginning of the year only 24 mm have fallen, all in March, equal to a deficit of -85% in the first three and a half months of 2020". The situation does not improve much in the Center and in the South (-43%) where, respectively, 6.4 and 8.1 billion cubic meters of water were missing compared to the average ".