Tornado strikes Milan, Italy

A violent wave of storms with severe phenomena hit the Italian city of Lombardy on Friday morning. In the north-eastern region of Milan, firefighters carried out about 110 interventions due to flooding, roof damage and fallen trees in the aftermath of a violent storm. Residents filmed the passage of a tornado between Cernusco Naviglio and Gessate.

Videos show the cone descended and developed from a storm front that crossed Lombardy causing damage and flooding. There were also strong hailstorms in the area affected by the severe weather.

Residents reported hail larger than tennis balls, up to 8 centimeters in diameter, in northern Lombardy and Veneto between Thursday night and Friday morning. In Saronno, a severe storm with hail the size of golf balls destroyed many cars

Two underpasses were flooded and fallen trees blocked the roads. In Mantova, the last two nights have been a nightmare. Windstorms, heavy rain and heavy hail caused damage to homes, cars and farms in the fields.

In the capital and neighboring municipalities such as Porto Mantofano, Curtatoni and part of the Borgo Virgilio region, praises the size of tennis balls combined with strong winds and rain that smashed the windows of hundreds of cars and caused severe damage to homes, solar panels and crops in the fields.

For days, Italy has been suffering from severe weather. At least 110 people were injured in a violent hailstorm that struck a region in northern Italy between Tuesday and Wednesday. The images showed hailstones the size of tennis balls hitting towns and villages in Veneto, the region around Venice in the northeast of the country.

Luca Zaia, the district chief, said 110 people were injured due to cold and broken glass, as well as from falling. “I thank once again the rescuers and technicians who intervened in the aftermath of the events and who continued during these hours the restoration work and the enumeration of the damage,” he said.

Winds of up to 140 km/h were also reported in the area. The national newspaper La Repubblica described trees being snapped “like toothpicks” and shingle roofs “torn houses apart” before tumbling several hundred meters away.

The press in Rome reported that “the hail that fell was absolutely out of the ordinary, with the hailstones reaching diameters of more than 15 cm in some cases”. The Veneto Regional Civil Protection said emergency services had responded to more than 500 requests for assistance due to material and physical damage.

Workers removed glass from broken windows and cut down trees and other vegetation that had been badly damaged by the storm. “The wave of bad weather, after hitting our mountainous areas, has now also reached the plains, causing some people to be injured,” Zaia said, adding that most of the injuries were caused by broken glass and people slipping on hailstones.