As I write, we are in the throes of anticylone Lucifero, which comes to us from the desert and follows Caligola, Nerone and four other anticyclones since June. During Nerone, the temperature one day soared to 49 C in Modica Bassa and registered 45 C in this district.
It's a myth that only the British constantly discuss the weather: the Sicilians do it too but, just as they have a different
concept of holidays, so they have different ideas about what constitutes good and bad weather. Where I come from, a temperature of 20 C is regarded as a heatwave and is sufficient to set the British tabloids screeching, "Cor! What a scorcher!" in their headlines but here anything less than about 33 C in summer is dismissed as "
brutto" ["bad"]. Even Sicilians, though, are apt to complain once the thermometer shows 40 C and you would think that, after three months of such extreme heat, they would greet a little rain with relief.
Not so: when the weather briefly broke ten days ago the rain and a few hailstones - admittedly the hailstones, because of the way houses are built here, sounded like a bombardment - caused widespread consternation and a friend I was with at the time even crossed herself. Somehow I don't think an autumn break in Cardiff would be for her!
As most Sicilians spend the three months of high summer at their houses by the sea or in the country, the usual afternoon greeting is "Com'era il mare stamattina?" ["How was the sea this morning?"] and if there was the slightest ripple on the surface of the water, the answer will be "brutto". A breeze will cause the sea to be described as "mosso" ["rough"]. What my Sicilian friends would make of the brave British who do daily battle with the winds in such locations as Weston-super-Mare I dread to imagine.
The serious side of all this is the spread of fire in the countryside during these heatwaves - one Sicilian firefighter has lost his life this summer - and the fact that meteorologists fear flooding in autumn because of the residual heat that will be given off by the soil.
We are promised a respite from the heat this weekend with the arrival of storm Beatrice. This rain-loving Brit awaits her as Dante awaited another Beatrice.
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Henry Holiday
Dante Meets Beatrice at Ponte Santa Trinità
Image: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK
via Wikimedia Commons |
