FLORIDIA, Sicily, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Five years after Floridia registered Europe's highest-ever temperature, residents say extreme heat is no longer measured by records but by its impact on daily life, keeping people indoors, reducing social interaction and threatening livelihoods.
The August 2021 record of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 degrees Fahrenheit) turned the Sicilian town into a symbol of Europe's warming climate as the continent emerged from COVID-19 restrictions.
Today, increasingly frequent and prolonged heatwaves are driving people indoors, leaving streets and piazzas deserted and prompting some residents to compare the extreme heat to a new form of lockdown.
The shift is visible across the town of 20,000 on the outskirts of Syracuse, the ancient Greek city on Sicily's southeastern coast. Piazza del Popolo, long Floridia's social hub and lined with cafes, palm trees and municipal buildings, is nearly empty for much of the day.
The heat lingers well into the evening, disrupting a cherished local tradition known as 'pigghiari u frescu', when families pull kitchen chairs outside their homes to catch the breeze and socialize.
"It's awful because many people end up shut indoors. In a way, we are all experiencing another kind of lockdown," Floridia's culture councillor Serena Spada told Reuters.
"Even people with small children find themselves in this situation. Children cannot go to the park or play outside because, until late afternoon, temperatures are genuinely hostile."
On August 11, 2021, Sicily's Agrometeorological Information Service (SIAS) measured a temperature of 48.8 C in Monasteri, a rural district about 5 km (3 miles) from Floridia's centre. In 2024, the World Meteorological Organization certified it as the highest temperature ever recorded in continental Europe, a mark that still stands.
"As I walked, I began struggling to breathe and thought: 'I could die here in the street, with no one around to help me'," said resident Ugo Tomasello.
Many residents assumed the record would prove an isolated event. Instead, hot summers became the norm.
"It turned out to be a very sad warning sign," Spada said.
While the temperature record drew international attention, climate scientists say individual extremes are less significant than the steady rise in average temperatures.
Reuters Climate Monitor data showed Floridia reached 33.3 C (92 F) on August 12, 2026, 4.1 C (7.4 F) above the average for the 1961-1990 historic norm.
"It is really the increase in average temperatures that worries us," SIAS director Luigi Pasotti said.
"We are no longer talking about extreme temperature peaks lasting one or two days, as happened in 2021. We are talking about entire weeks, even months during which temperatures remain consistently high."
