Heavy rain and thunderstorms have caused havoc in Switzerland and northern Italy over the past week. Switzerland was badly hit on Friday 21 June, with downpours delivering more than 100mm across many areas – more than half of this within one hour.
Flash flooding and landslides swept away cars and houses, with at least one person known to have died, alongside widespread damage to transport infrastructure. The mountain resort of Zermatt was entirely cut off due to a combination of flood water, road closures and suspended train services.
Unsettled conditions persisted around the Alpine region over the weekend, before pushing farther south into Italy, bringing similar downpours to Emilia-Romagna and northern Tuscany on Tuesday. Between 100mm and 200mm of rain fell across much of the area, which caused rivers to overflow their banks and resulted in widespread flooding. Elsewhere, water levels in Lake Garda reached their highest level since 1977, while a strong thunderstorm in Veneto produced a tornado near Rovigo, which brought down several trees and damaged buildings.
Heatwaves around the northern hemisphere have continued to dominate weather headlines. Temperatures in Saudi Arabia soared above 50C (122F) at times last week as millions undertook the hajj pilgrimage, with more than 500,000 people taken to hospital and up to 1,300 deaths subsequently attributed to heat-related illnesses.
Several Balkan countries experienced power cuts last Friday as temperatures in the high 30Cs spurred a spike in the use of air conditioning units. In the US, more than 100 million people were affected by heat alerts over the past week, with daily temperature records smashed in some north-eastern states on Friday and Death Valley in California hitting 49C on Sunday. In Pakistan, hundreds of deaths have been reported since the weekend as temperatures widely exceeded 40C each day.
In the southern hemisphere, however, parts of Australia have seen an early cold snap this winter. Parts of Queensland recorded overnight temperatures more than 10C below average, while the south-east may have experienced its coldest start to winter for several decades. Lows hit 7.7C in Brisbane, 2.2C in Melbourne, and -3.3C in Canberra. Minimum temperature records for June were broken in at least five places as it dropped below freezing. Several places in Victoria and South Australia recorded their coldest June day in decades. Temperatures stubbornly refused to rise above single figures.
