Palermo sits in southern Italy or on one of its islands, where hot, dry Mediterranean summers give way to an autumn and winter rainy season, when warm sea-surface temperatures can fuel extremely intense, slow-moving storms known in Italy as nubifragi.
On Sicily’s northern coast, the city’s surrounding hills can send intense autumn rain into local streams quickly. These autumn events have produced some of Italy’s most devastating floods in recent memory, and radar imagery is central to how Italy’s national civil protection system issues flash-flood alerts along this coast. Learn more: Flash Flood Warning Signs on Radar · Open the full Rain Map