page_title: Northern Italy
section_title: Climate
hierarchical_section_title: Northern Italy / Geography / Climate
caption_attribution_description: Campogalliano (MO)
context_page_description: Northern Italy is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. Non-administrative, it consists of eight administrative Regions in northern Italy: Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. As of 2014, its population was 27,801,460. Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in the region, as opposed to the Italo-Dalmatian languages spoken in the rest of Italy. The Venetian language is sometimes considered to be part of the Italo-Dalmatian languages, but some major publications such as Ethnologue and Glottolog define it as Gallo-Italic.
  For statistic purposes, the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica uses the terms Northwest Italy and Northeast Italy for two of Italy's five statistical regions in its reporting. These same subdivisions are used to demarcate first-level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union, and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament.
context_section_description: The climate of Northern Italy is mainly humid subtropical (Köppen Cfa), especially in the plains. Winter in Northern Italy is normally long, relatively dry and rather cold. In addition, there is a high seasonal temperature variation between summer and winter. In the hills and mountains, the climate is humid continental (Köppen Dfb). In the valleys it is cold but usually with low humidity, while it can be severely cold above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), with copious snowfalls. The coastal areas of Liguria generally fit the Mediterranean climate profile. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb), numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, allowing the cultivation of typically Mediterranean crops (olives, citrus fruit).
  A peculiarity of the regional climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February, especially in the central Po Plain. The east coast, from Romagna to Trieste is occasionally affected by the cold bora winds in winter and spring.
  The coldest month is January: the Po valley's mean temperature is between −1 and 1 °C (30 and 34 °F). Winter morning lows can occasionally reach −30 to −20 °C (−22 to −4 °F) in the Alps and −14 to −8 °C (7 to 18 °F) in the Po valley, with records close to −30 °C (−22 °F) near Bologna are some of the coldest winters. Summer is usually more stable, although quite stormy near the Alps, with July temperatures are 22–24 °C (72–75 °F) north of river Po, like in Milan or Venice, and south of river Po can reach 24–25 °C (75–77 °F) like in Bologna.
  The number of days with lows below 0 °C (32 °F) is usually from 60 to 90 a year, with peaks of 100–110 days in the mainly rural zones. In the colder winters, the Venice Lagoon may freeze, and in the coldest ones even enough to walk on the ice sheet.
  Precipitation evenly distributed during the year, although the summer is usually slightly wetter. is more intense in the Prealpine zone, up to 1,500 to 2,000 mm (59 to 79 inches) annually, but is abundant also in the plains and Alpine zones, with an average of 600 to 850 mm (24 to 33 inches) annually. The total annual rainfall is on average 827 mm (32.6 inches). Snow is quite common between early December and early March in cities like Turin, Milan and Bologna, but sometimes it appears in late November or late March and even April. Both the Alps and the Apennine can see up to 500–1,000 cm (200–390 inches) of snow in a year at 2,000 m (6,600 feet); on the highest peaks of the Alps, snow may fall even during mid summer, and glaciers are present.
caption: Fog on the Secchia River near Modena. Fog is a common occurrence in the Po Plain
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