Foggia (Fògge in the Foggia dialect) is an Italian town of 149
210 inhabitants, capital of the homonymous province, in Puglia.
Located in the center of the Tavoliere, it developed after the
reclamation work. It is home to the International Fair of
Agriculture and Zootechnics.
It is the seat of industries
operating in various sectors: food, textile, chemical, mechanical
and production of building materials, it is also the seat of the
metropolitan archiepiscopal, as well as (since 1999) an autonomous
university seat.
Despite the earthquake of 1731 and the
bombings that hit the city during the Second World War, it boasts a
discreet historic center.
Foggia rises in the center of the Tavoliere delle
Puglie, between the Celone stream and the Cervaro river.
The
territory is located in a flat geographical area and has an altitude
range of 291 meters, with an altitude between 19 and 310 meters. The
municipal house is located at 76 m above sea level.
The city
lies on clayey soils, subject to high water stagnation. It falls
within the area indicated for medium seismicity.
The climate is Mediterranean, but with a sub-continental trend, as
the city is located at a relative distance from the sea (about 30 km
as the crow flies) and in the center of the Tavoliere delle Puglie.
This favors rather pronounced seasonal and daily temperature
variations, sometimes even 20 ° C, especially in the presence of
clear skies, poor ventilation and low relative humidity values.
These conditions contribute, especially in winter, to the formation
of night frost, when the temperature drops to 0 ° C thanks to the
considerable irradiation and consequently to the phenomenon of
thermal inversion.
In general, there are 4/5 days of snow
episodes per year, short and without accumulation. The most abundant
snowfall of the last twenty-five years occurred on December 15, 2007
with 20 cm; on 7 and 8 April 2003, up to 5-10 cm (significant given
the temporal value); January 16, 2002, about 10/15 cm; on 26/27
December 1996 up to 30 cm and on 3 January 1993, also on that
occasion about 30/35 cm.
The lowest minimum temperature
recorded at the Amendola Air Force meteorological station was -10.4
° C in the historic cold spell of January 1985.
Precipitation
is modest overall and, depending on the year, between 350 mm and 700
mm (469 mm the average from the Amendola weather station) and mainly
distributed in the autumn and winter quarters. The most consistent
accumulations of rain, but in any case almost never exceeding 60–70
mm per day, are associated with depressions formed on the Middle or
Lower Tyrrhenian between October and March that attract very humid
currents from the east / southeast from the sea, which pour rainfall
with moderate intensity, but persistent. The stau, offered by the
Apennine chain, plays an essential role.
Summer is
particularly hot, dry and dry: maximum temperatures easily exceed
+34 ° C / +35 ° C in the presence of the African subtropical
anticyclone, even exceeding +40 ° C at least a couple of times a
year. following of foehn winds which, falling from the Campania
Apennines, overheat causing temperatures to rise further. Memorable
are the +47 ° C measured at the Amendola Air Force station (15 km
away from the city center) on 25 June 2007 which represents the 2nd
highest temperature record in Europe, preceded by the record of +48
, 5 ° C of Catenanuova in the province of Enna on 20 August 1999.
Simultaneously with the considerable accumulation of heat in the
atmosphere, any intrusion of humid air can usually generate violent
thunderstorms, sometimes hail or rarely associated with microbursts.
Remember, the tornadoes that swept the city and part of the province
in the early afternoon of August 25, 1994, with winds above 120-130
km / h and classified as F1 on the Fujita scale. Around 1 pm local
time on the same day, the meteorological station of the Amendola Air
Force recorded a gust equal to 142.6 km / h from the southwest.
Winds, moderate or strong, blow predominantly from the southwest
or northwest. There are numerous days of fog a year (on average 34
according to the data of the Foggia Amendola Meteorological Station)
and concentrated between November and April, formed either by
radiation or by the flow of weak mild and humid sirocco currents on
a layer of more cold present on the ground, which places the city as
one of the most foggy in Central-Southern Italy.
From a
legislative point of view, the municipality of Foggia falls into the
Climatic Band D as the city's degree days are 1530, therefore the
maximum limit allowed for switching on the heaters is 12 hours a day
from 1 November to 15 April.