After two days of severe thunderstorms across northern and central Italy the country is drawing up an initial assessment. The President of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, formally requested a state of emergency from the Italian Civil Protection authority on Friday, around 400 people were evacuated from flood-affected and mudslide-threatened zones, and the fire brigade recorded more than 1,000 call-outs in just 24 hours across Bergamo, Brescia, Genoa, Florence and Udine. What the Civil Protection authority had forecast for those two days proved accurate in certain areas with full force, bringing record rainfall totals, lightning storms across Tuscany and, in places, severe damage to infrastructure, residential properties and roads. Here is an overview.
Lombardy at the centre of the crisis
The region hardest hit was Lombardy. In the mountain provinces of Bergamo and Brescia, more than 400 people in total were evacuated from at-risk areas, including around 250 from a campsite at Isola di Fondra in the Val Brembana, which was threatened by a mudslide and rising water levels in a nearby stream. In the Val Camonica, near Sonico, a bridge over the Torrente Val Rabbia collapsed, severing the link between the village of Rino and the main town. As the news agency Dire documents in its detailed chronology, six mountain communities in the Bergamo hinterland remain cut off from the outside world: Valleve, Carona, Foppolo, Branzi, Valbondione and Gandellino. In the Brescia area, the River Oglio burst its banks, and in Ponte di Legno the Ponte-Tonale cable car had to be shut down following a lightning strike. All eight people on board returned safely to the valley.
The rainfall totals were exceptional. Up to 270 millimetres fell in the Alpi Orobie and up to 260 millimetres at the Alto Lago di Como, equivalent to the normal rainfall for several months combined. The fire brigade recorded more than 450 call-outs in Lombardy alone, out of a total of more than one thousand across northern and central Italy within 24 hours.
23,000 lightning strikes over Tuscany
A second crisis zone formed in Tuscany. Between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. on Thursday, the Lamma Consortium recorded more than 23,000 lightning strikes over the region, including 8,000 in the two hours between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. alone. Wind gusts reached 106 kilometres per hour along the Pisa coast, 103 in the province of Florence, and 92 in Viareggio. In Florence, a 75-year-old tourist was injured on the shoulder by a falling roof tile; her condition is not a cause for concern. The city recorded at least 23 fallen trees, some of which also damaged the tram network.
In the province of Pistoia, more than 2,000 households were temporarily left without power, residential buildings were damaged in Larciano, and a long section of the fencing around the municipal stadium in Pescia collapsed. At Tonfano, near Marina di Pietrasanta, a waterspout struck the local stabilimenti balneari and residential properties. In the Lunigiana, on the border with Liguria, three people were rescued from a mudslide near Bagnone, and the Bagnone stream exceeded its second alert threshold. As the Italian news portal Today.it summarises from the detailed reports of the local fire brigades, hourly rainfall totals in isolated areas reached 120 millimetres, a figure documented in northern Italy only in extreme circumstances.
Further damage in Liguria, Emilia-Romagna and Friuli
The other regions placed under Civil Protection warnings also recorded damage. In Genoa , a wall collapsed in Via Posalunga in the Borgoratti district, and in the Emilia-Romagna, two mudslides came down in the Parma area, near Terenzo and Corniglio, reducing traffic to a single lane on the affected roads. In Friuli-Venezia Giulia, emergency call centres received 135 calls relating to storm damage, concentrated in Udine (50), Pordenone (40), Gorizia (32) and Trieste (13), primarily due to fallen trees and localised flooding. Forlì-Cesena airport was briefly closed, and several rail services in the north operated with restrictions.
Political response and state of emergency
Regional President Attilio Fontana formally requested that Italy's Minister for Civil Protection , Nello Musumeci, recognise a state of emergency for Lombardy on Friday evening. As the news agency Adnkronos reports from the official regional statement, the regional councillor responsible for Civil Protection, Romano La Russa, together with the territorial councillor Gianluca Comazzi, is to prepare the documentation for the formal application. Musumeci has given his commitment to present the request to the Council of Ministers as soon as possible.
The connection with the fourth heatwave of the summer of 2026 is clearly established meteorologically: weeks of heat accumulation across the Po Valley provided the energy for the storms, while incoming cold Atlantic air triggered their release. Climate scientists have been pointing out for years that extreme heat episodes and extreme rainfall events in northern Italy are increasing in parallel, since higher air temperatures carry more moisture. The current assessment is a concrete confirmation of that forecast and the direct consequence of the severe weather warning issued on Thursday, which manifested at its most intense in Lombardy and Tuscany.
What travellers should know now
For travellers in the affected regions, the situation requires a case-by-case assessment. Six mountain communities in the Bergamo hinterland remain cut off, and anyone with plans for a walking holiday in the Val Brembana, Val Seriana or Val Camonica is advised to check the latest bulletins from the local Civil Protection authority and to plan alternative routes. In Tuscany, the road network has largely been restored following the storm, though certain routes in the Lunigiana and around Pistoia remain subject to restrictions. Over the weekend, meteorologists are expecting conditions to settle considerably, with more stable weather and temperatures below the averages of recent weeks.
Those wishing to follow further weather developments will find the current daily Vigilanza bulletin on the official Protezione Civile portal . At regional level, each region's Arpa agency provides up-to-date detailed information on water levels, footpath closures and further safety guidance. The current wildfire situation in the country is directly linked to the weather conditions of recent weeks, as soil conditions, vegetation and fire risk are now changing again with the rainfall.
