Detection of atmospheric rivers affecting the western Mediterranean and producing extreme rainfall over northern-central Italy

Davolio, Silvio; Sala, Isacco; Comunian, Alessandro; Mastrangelo, Daniele; Miglietta, Mario Marcello; Drago Pitura, Lucia; Grazzini, Federico

doi:10.5194/nhess-26-2291-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-2291-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-2291-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 5

Research article

|

19 May 2026

Research article |

| 19 May 2026

Detection of atmospheric rivers affecting the western Mediterranean and producing extreme rainfall over northern-central Italy

Silvio Davolio, Isacco Sala, Alessandro Comunian, Daniele Mastrangelo, Mario Marcello Miglietta, Lucia Drago Pitura, and Federico Grazzini

Data sets

Replication data for: "Detection of atmospheric rivers affecting the Mediterranean and producing extreme rainfall over northern-central Italy" Silvio Davolio https://doi.org/10.13130/RD_UNIMI/GR9D83

Complete ERA5 from 1940: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate Hans Hersbach et al. https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.143582cf

Short summary

Atmospheric rivers, narrow and long corridors of intense horizontal moisture transport, may produce heavy precipitation where they are forced to rise over the orography. This has been recently shown to occur also in the Mediterranean basin, especially over the Alps and Apennines in Italy. The present study analyses the presence of atmospheric rivers in this area, in the period 1961–2024, and reveals a strong connection with extreme rainfall over northern-central Italy.