2022 hottest year in Italy since 1800: Data

This year will go down as the hottest in Italy since records began in 1800, according to data from the Institute for Atmospheric Science at the country's National Research Council (NRC).

"There were record highs all along the way, starting in the spring, all throughout the summer, and now in the winter," Bernardo Gozzini, director of the NRC's LaMMA meteorology consortium, told Xinhua.

The new record won't be official until the end of the year, but LaMMA officials said it is statistically impossible for average temperatures to fall below those of 2018, previously the hottest year on record in Italy.

LaMMA first began reporting in July that this year was on track to be the hottest on record. In October, it said that temperatures in northern and central Italy were 3.2 degrees Celsius higher than normal.