this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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It just sounds better to include the temperature, gets them more clicks. Wildfires happen every week there, big or small, but when it’s only 30 degrees then they won’t care to include that in the title. Except for cooler places like Germany where 30 degrees would magically be enough to be mentioned in the title again 😅
Let's look at Palermo Airport's weather station data: https://meteostat.net/de/station/16405?t=2023-06-01/2023-07-26
The last noteworthy rain fell on June 16. Since then, temperatures have slowly risen, but were mostly between 26-35°C. Only for the last two days, temperatures reached 43/44 and 42 degrees (today it's even been a steady 28 degrees). First miss-information in the title: 47°C were actually reached on the mainland, not where the fire started. Why pick a totally irrelevant temperature? Generates mores clicks.
Evaporation is not only dependent on temperature, isn't air humidity almost more important? To be fair, humidity was especially low during these two days with as low as 10% for a few hours. It all comes down to this: Is two days enough to have such a huge additional effect on evaporation compared to the 38 days without rain before?
Adding to that, I found a german source that says the fires around Palermo started on July 24 (apparently during the night after the first 40+ day), leaving even less time for significant evaporation. Haven't had the time to find a map that shows fires by date yet.
To be totally clear, it is 100% another heat wave caused/made possible by climate change. But I just think putting the (wrong) temperature in the title, when the deciding factor and cause would be drought (normal during this time of year) and arson, is misleading and doesn't accurately represent the primary factors contributing to the incident.
By the way, for which country did you check wikipedia articles for? Here is a list with plenty in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires