Florence, 14 Mar (LaPresse) – Heavy rainfall in Florence in the last few hours: the hydrometer at the Florence-Boboli station recorded 6.6 millimetres of rain in a quarter of an hour and 11.4 millimetres in an hour. At 8 a.m., wind gusts reached a peak of almost 33 km/h. This was announced in a statement issued by Palazzo Vecchio.In the city since midnight today, a code orange was issued for rain and the risk of strong thunderstorms, with the Arno River exceeding the first guard level. The civil protection operations room has been monitoring the progress of the disturbance, analysing the data gradually arriving from meteo-radars, rain gauges and hydrometers. The subways, which are constantly monitored, are all working. Crf experts point out that ‘scattered rainfall will continue in the next few hours, especially in inland areas, while the active thunderstorm line over the Ligurian Sea should extend to the central-northern coast; accumulations of up to 30-40 mm will be possible in the next three hours, more likely in the northwest’. A further worsening is expected in the course of the morning and until the afternoon when ‘rainfall may intensify proving persistent in the same areas, along a line that from the province of Livorno will continue to extend inland, affecting the provinces of Pisa, Florence, Prato, Arezzo and Pistoia’.