Ancona weather

Summer 2008 seems a neverending one here in central Italy and in the South too.. not the same in the northern regions, where t-storms with heavy rains continue to pop-up in the Alpine and Pre-Alpine areas. This is happening while in parts of the north-east and much of the central and southern Italy the drought gets worse (with many wildfires in the last few days)!
But let's talk of this RECORD HEAT WAVE for sept.. An air mass with temps of 20°/25°C at 850 mb came from northern Africa to our Peninsula, bringing a lot of saharian sand in the sky and a DESERTIC-LIKE WEATHER!! Yesterday many towns in central and southern Italy had highs between 35°C and 43°C (95°/109°F), with relative humidity down to 10-30% inland! This happened especially in places where the SW - S or SE winds descend the mountains, developing a foehn-like effect! Just look at some stations here on wunderground, like PESCARA or PALERMO.. some of them near Pescara reported TONIGHT values of 30°C/33°C (85°-91°F), with SW winds from the Appennini mountains! Look at this data..

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=IPESCARA4&day=7&year=2008&month=9

In my region too (Le Marche) yesterday's highs were in the upper 90°sF inland or even close to 104°F (40°C).. it's amazing for september! I hope rain and fall like temps will come soon or we'll have many demages especially for the drought :(

FRA83