Irish woman says hailstones 'the size of tennis balls' pummeled campsite in Italy
An example of a hailstone which fell on a couple of Italy's northern regions earlier this week. Picture: Carlow Weather/Twitter
An Irish woman travelling around the north of Italy says that hailstones "the size of tennis balls" fell on the caravan park she and her two teenage daughters were staying in.
Italy has been grappling with extreme weather in recent weeks, with the southern half of the country baking in temperatures of up to 44C, and thunderstorms, hail, and winds of up to 100km/h pummeling the country's northern regions.
Local authorities in the regions of Lombardy and Veneto advised people to stay away from public parks due to the risk of falling branches and trees being uprooted due to storms, and several popular tourist sites have also been closed to the public entirely.
A lot of damage done from that severe thunderstorm near Lake Garda in Italy last night.
— Carlow Weather (@CarlowWeather) July 25, 2023
Hail larger than golf balls destroying cars and lots of windows in hotels. Reports from a follower of a campsite being hit with many injured and lot of damage.
While severe thunderstorms are… pic.twitter.com/XRGECuVE8q
Kilkenny woman Donna Dunne had been travelling around France and northern Italy in a campervan over the last few days.
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They had parked their campervan at a campsite in Peschiera del Garda, at Lake Garda's southern tip, when a torrential hailstorm began. Ms Dunne said what started as a thunder and lightning storm "quickly evolved into a hailstorm like nothing I've ever seen before".
Ms Dunne said that hailstones which fell from the sky and smashed car windscreens, windows, tents, furniture and even the walls and roofs of some prefabricated buildings.
"I've seen people describe the hailstones as golf balls, but in reality, when they smashed through the windows, they weren't golf balls size, they were closer to the size of tennis balls."
She said that every single vehicle in the campsite was "destroyed".
Luckily, she had parked her campervan in a corner of the site, meaning it escaped some of the worst of the hail. However, the skylight of her vehicle was smashed.
Ms Dunne told that she and her daughters booked into an AirBnB for the next three nights because they are too scared to go back into the campervan.
"I have three nights accommodation sorted and after that I'm not sure what I'm doing," she said.
She said that vehicles in other campsites in the area have also been badly damaged leaving campers unsure as to what they will do next.
Meanwhile, as reported in The Guardian, Italy has been hit by violent storms and wildfires. At least seven people were killed on Tuesday after storms in the north and wildfires in Sicily.
Among those killed was a 16-year-old girl. Prime minister Giorgia Meloni said the girl died when a tree fell on her tent during a scout camp near Brescia after high winds and torrential rain overnight.
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