Highs of up to 41C were forecast in inland Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio, according to forecasts from weather site ilMeteo.it.

Cities including Milan, Rome, Florence and Bologna were expected to reach 39-40C, with the centre-north hit hard again by the latest heatwave.

“This weekend the thermometers will go mad: we’ll hit 41 degrees in Terni and 40 in Ferrara, Florence, Modena and Piacenza,” said ilMeteo.it meteorologist Lorenzo Tedici, warning that cities in the northern Po Valley area were expected to be among the hottest.

Campobasso, Perugia and Rieti were already under the health ministry’s maximum red alert on Thursday, with 16 other cities and provincial capitals on the second-highest orange alert, including Bolzano, Florence, Rome, Turin and Milan.

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Seven more join the red alert list on Friday: Bolzano, Civitavecchia, Florence, Frosinone, Latina, Rome, Turin and Viterbo.

The anticyclone causing the intense heat was moving in from the south-west, hitting Spain and southern France first, atmospheric physicist Lorenzo Giovannini of the University of Trento told Ansa.

“Temperatures will be high almost everywhere in Italy, but will deviate most from seasonal averages in the centre-north,” he said.

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This was the fourth heatwave to hit Italy since the end of May, he confirmed.

“They have followed one another almost without a break: the intervals have been very brief,” Giovannini said.

“We are well above the average of past years, including in terms of temperatures."

Estimates for the end date have already moved several times, from August 9th to the 12th and 13th, according to IlMeteo..

He predicted that the heat was likely to persist until Ferragosto, the August 15th holiday, or even beyond.

Several Italian regions remained on high alert for more wildfires as the heat intensified, with Rome and the surrounding areas already hit harder than usual in July.