the lakes area in Italy
 

I was looking at weather information for the Como area of Italy and it shows August and September as being very high rainfall months with temperatures in the mid 60's. Can anyone give me their personal experience with weather that time of year? Thanks

"very high" rainfall months? compared to other months? THERE? or compared to other parts of the Northern hemisphere (this is a serious question - - I haven't look at whatever statistics you have looked at)

My impression is that the climate of the Lake Como area is uncharacteristically "paradise-like" for 8-10 months of the year. My own experience there aroud Sept 10-15 in 2000 was sunny/rain-free with high temps in the mid-low 70's and evenings in the upper 50's. Perhaps there was some early morning fog. Just added to the allure of the beginning of the day.

Naturally, August would be somewhat different, I would think.

Best wishes,

Rex

60 degrees (Fahrenheit?) in the Lakes District in Italy in August? Where are you getting this information? I suppose it's possible, but our week on Lake Maggiore in August was more like 80+ degrees and sunny.
I thought the lakes were a kind of microclimate - hence the proliferation of mimosas and lemon trees, etc.

Rainfall: Aug(3.5") Sep(2.7")Oct(3.3")

High Aug(80) Sep(74) Oct(64)

Low Aug(59) Sep(53) Oct(44)

dw--I think that 60s temperature might be a daily average of the high and low.

Dw, that just doesn't sound right for August. I was in the Lake Como area, staying in Varenna, for a few days at the end of September. It was drizzly for part of the time, so a bit cool, but even then, I don't think it felt any colder than 60F. When it was sunny, it felt like 70sF. None of the locals mentioned to me that the weather when I was there was especially unseasonable, so I really doubt that 60F would be normal for August.

Your high rainfall stats may be due to short but intense thunderstorms, rather than whole days of rain. We've been to that part of the world in August and it was very warm and sunny, but thunderstorms popped up from time to time.

Last summer (2002), we had excellent weather at Lake Garda and in Bellagio from August 27 to Sept. 1. A few brief showers, but nothing much. But then we went to Stresa for three days (Sept.1 to 3) and it almost never stopped raining. The one day it was pouring when we got up and still pouring when we went to bed that night. It never seemed to slow up all day. The other two days were rain at least two-thirds of the time. We may have been unlucky, but it DOES happen!

Aug 66?F 53?F N/A?F 6.30 in.

Sep 61?F 49?F N/A?F 5.60 in.

These were the stats from weather.com and it seemed unusual but it also had me a little nervous. Coming from Phoenix we don't get this much rain all year and it seemed like it could put quite a damper on that part of the trip. Thanks for all your input.

Odd, those staistics from weather.com - - I have never used that site for historical data, thinking that weatherbase.com is the most comprehensive. www.worldclimate.com seems pretty good too.

But weatherbase does not have an appropriately nearby comparison town - - so I used Lugano (Switzerland) - - it ought to be pretty darn near the same thing (only about 25 miles away from Menaggio, and on a similar lake setting.

They say Aug 82/59, Sep 75/54

Their precipiation figures surprise me (higher than I expected) - - about 6-7 inches/month, without a lot of variation, Apr-Nov. Fewer inches/month in the winter(perhaps some of that is snow?). About 10 rainy days/month - - so I think that the observation about some big storms dropping a lot of rain at once seems to be a factor, as was indicated above.