Climate and natural hazards

The coasts have a warm Mediterranean climate: the Ionian coast (Crotone, Locride) is the driest and hottest, with long summers and Scirocco winds; the Tyrrhenian (Tropea, Paola) is more humid and rainy, with some of the highest annual rainfall in the South on the mountains behind it. The Sila (Camigliatello, Lorica) and Aspromonte (Gambarie) have cold winters with snow from December to March and small ski lifts; Cosenza has cool, rainy winters. Summers are dry everywhere with heatwaves. The climate data in this entry refer to the regional capital.

Seismic risk

All of Calabria is classified by Civil Protection in seismic zone 1 (most municipalities) or 2: it is the region with the highest seismic hazard in Italy. The 1783 sequence destroyed the Gioia Tauro plain and Reggio; the earthquake of 8 September 1905 hit the Vibo area; that of 28 December 1908 (magnitude 7.1) destroyed Reggio Calabria and Messina with a tsunami, killing tens of thousands, the worst natural disaster in modern Italian history. Much of the building stock predates anti-seismic rules: checking a building's seismic class is essential. The Strait bridge project is going through its authorisation process.

Floods, landslides, fires

Hydrogeological risk is among the highest in Italy: flash floods along the fiumare torrents, as at Crotone in 1996, Soverato in 2000 and the Reggio area in 2015; landslides that cut off villages (Maierato 2010); extensive coastal erosion on the Ionian side. Summer fires are recurrent: in August 2021 the Aspromonte forests burned for weeks, including part of the UNESCO ancient beech forest of Valle Infernale. Water is plentiful in the mountains but coastal networks suffer losses and summer cuts. Air quality is good almost everywhere; Crotone and the Gioia Tauro plain have industrial sites awaiting clean-up.