🇮🇹 Palermo Climate Health Index
Tuesday, 22 September 2026 · updated 04:59 UTC · refreshes live through the day · LIVE
Modelled estimates · Medically reviewed guidance · Not an official warning service
est. = index derived by Mobi Doctor's model from the weather inputs. All values are modelled estimates from European weather and atmospheric forecast systems (Open-Meteo · CAMS/Copernicus) — not direct readings from a monitoring station in this city, and not official public-health warnings.
Cancer Immunology Researcher
The Climate Health Score for Palermo today is 6.1/10 — high exposure on a 0–10 scale where 10 is extreme. It reflects the worst of ten live hazard readings for Palermo — heat, UV, air quality, pollen, hydration demand, allergy, mosquito activity, fire weather, flu season and cold — and is recalculated through the day by Mobi Doctor's European Climate Health Index.
How heat behaves in Palermo
Palermo's heat peaks when the scirocco arrives: Saharan air can lift this coastal city into the low 40s within a day, sometimes carrying dust that stacks respiratory load onto heat strain. Between episodes, warm Tyrrhenian humidity keeps nights tropical through high summer.
Palermo faces Africa across open water, and its heat geography is written by that exposure: the Conca d'Oro bowl concentrates warmth, the dense Arab-Norman centre — Ballarò, Vucciria, the Kalsa — stacks heat-retaining stone over markets that work outdoors regardless of temperature, and the seafront gives its breeze mainly to the districts that can afford to face it. Market traders, street vendors and the old town's elderly residents are the city's front line when Saharan air arrives.
Heat and your health in Palermo today
Feels-like maximum 29°C (air temperature 27°C) · tonight's minimum 21°C · humidity 82% · heat pillar score 3.3/10
Where today sits in Palermo's year: the heat season here typically runs June to late September, with scirocco spikes into the low 40s, peaking July to late August. Tropical nights in Palermo: common from July into September along the coast and dense centre.
Heat stresses the body long before heatstroke. As the air temperature and humidity climb, your heart works harder to push blood to the skin for cooling, you lose fluid and electrolytes through sweat, and blood pressure can dip when you stand. That is why hot days bring more dizziness, fainting, migraines, kidney strain and falls — and studies of heatwave hospital admissions also report more urinary tract infections, thought to be linked to dehydration — not just classic heat exhaustion.
Night temperature matters as much as the daytime peak. When a night stays above 20°C — a tropical night — the cardiovascular system gets far less of its overnight recovery window — one reason heatwave mortality tracks hot nights more closely than hot afternoons. Tonight in Palermo is forecast to stay around 21°C, so prioritise cooling the bedroom before you sleep.
Pollen count in Palermo today
Pollen levels are currently minimal · score 0.0/10
Palermo's pollen calendar: Olive April–June · grass March–June · parietaria spring to autumn. The live counts above show where today falls in that cycle.
Pollen allergy (hay fever) is triggered by different plants through the year: trees like birch and alder in spring, grasses in early summer, and weeds such as mugwort and ragweed from late July into autumn. Symptoms — sneezing, itchy eyes, a blocked nose, worsened asthma — flare when daily counts cross species-specific thresholds, and air pollution makes the same pollen load feel worse by priming the airways.
On high-count days: keep windows closed in the early morning and evening, shower and change after time outdoors, and start antihistamines before symptoms peak rather than after. If you use an asthma inhaler, keep it with you on high pollen days.
Allergy load in Palermo today: pollen × air quality
Combined pollen-and-air allergy load 0.5/10 — pollen 0.0 amplified by air quality (EAQI 26) · estimated from live data
Palermo's parietaria thrives on limestone walls through most of the year, and Saharan dust events layer mineral particles on top of it — a Mediterranean amplification with African inputs. Olive and grass fill late spring across the Conca d'Oro.
Allergy risk is more than the pollen count. Exhaust particles damage the airway lining and prime the immune response, so the same grains provoke stronger symptoms on polluted days — and pollutant-stressed plants release more allergenic protein per grain. This combined score therefore reads pollen and air quality together: identical counts can feel very different on clean and dirty days, which is why it is tracked as its own pillar rather than folded into either input.
Today the combination is modest — sensitised people can treat this as a normal day, with the usual seasonal routine.
UV index in Palermo today
Maximum UV index 6.3 · high on the WHO scale
Palermo's strong-UV season: April to September — midday index 9–10.
UV radiation peaks between late morning and mid-afternoon and is invisible — it burns on cool, cloudy days too. At UV 8 and above, unprotected fair skin can burn in under 30 minutes. Repeated burns drive most skin-cancer risk, and some common medicines (certain antibiotics, diuretics, acne treatments) make skin dramatically more sun-sensitive.
Today: SPF 30–50 on exposed skin, sunglasses, and shade between 11:00 and 16:00. Reapply sunscreen every two hours outdoors.
Air quality in Palermo today
European AQI 26 · fair (EAQI scale: 0 good → 100+ worst) · PM2.5 5.5 µg/m³ · ozone 72 µg/m³ · score 2.1/10
Palermo's defining air event is the scirocco: Saharan crossings carry dust that turns the sky tan and doubles particle counts while the temperature spikes — the specific combination asthmatic residents plan their days around.
Fine particles (PM2.5) reach deep into the lungs and bloodstream; ozone forms in sunny, hot weather and irritates the airways — which is why heatwaves and smog often arrive together. People with asthma, COPD, heart disease, pregnant women and children feel the effects first: more wheeze, more inhaler use, more chest tightness.
Levels are acceptable for outdoor activity today for most people, including sensitive groups.
Fire weather around Palermo today
Fire-weather score 0.5/10 — 27°C, 82% humidity, wind to 12 km/h · estimated (weather conduciveness, not active fires)
July 2023 put flames at Palermo's edges and closed the airport — Sicilian scrub burns hard on scirocco days, and smoke over the city is a recurring summer possibility. The score reads exactly that dryness-and-wind readiness.
This pillar scores how conducive the weather is to wildfire — heat, dry air and wind, the published Angström approach — not actual fires. Its health meaning is smoke: wildfire smoke is concentrated fine particulate that can travel hundreds of kilometres, and a smoke episode hits the same people hardest as any pollution spike — asthma, COPD, heart disease, pregnancy, young children and older adults.
Conditions are not notably fire-conducive today. If you see or smell smoke regardless, treat it like a pollution episode: head indoors, close the windows, and postpone outdoor exertion.
Hydration in Palermo today
Hydration demand score 2.5/10 · estimated from live weather
Palermo's scirocco days are the hydration emergencies: Saharan air can drop humidity and raise temperature simultaneously, doubling evaporation within hours — on those days locals drink ahead of thirst, and so should you.
Fluid needs are not fixed — they scale with heat, humidity, dry air, UV and activity. Thirst lags behind need, especially in older adults, whose thirst signal weakens with age. Dark urine, headache, and light-headedness on standing are earlier and more reliable signals.
Today's guidance: Slightly raised — drink regularly through the day; carry water when out.
Mosquito activity in Palermo tonight
Mosquito activity score 6.1/10 — tonight around 21°C at 82% humidity · estimated from live weather (activity, not disease risk)
Mosquito season in Palermo: May to October — tiger mosquito established; dusk in courtyards and gardens. The score above places tonight inside that season using live temperature and humidity.
Mosquitoes fly when nights are warm and humid enough — activity climbs steeply once evenings hold above about 15°C and peaks on still, muggy nights. Southern Europe adds the tiger mosquito, a day-biter now established across much of the Mediterranean, whose continued spread north ECDC tracks. In parts of southern and central Europe, late summer also brings limited local transmission of mosquito-borne infections such as West Nile virus — an activity score is not a disease-risk score, but high-activity weeks are when precautions earn their keep.
Practical: use a repellent containing DEET or icaridin at dusk, cover ankles and wrists outdoors in the evening, screen or close windows at night, and empty standing water on balconies weekly. Speak to a doctor about any fever that develops in the week after heavy bite exposure in an affected region.
Flu season in Palermo: where today sits
Flu-season level 0.9/10 · seasonal climatology (ECDC winter pattern), not live case counts
Palermo's flu season is short and mid-winter — December to February, peaking in January — cushioned by Sicily's mild coastal winter. Summer readings sit at the floor. Autumn vaccination is the standing advice for older residents and chronic patients.
Influenza in Europe is sharply seasonal: transmission runs low through summer, builds from late autumn as life moves indoors and cool, dry air favours the virus, then peaks between December and February in ECDC's surveillance pattern. This pillar follows that climatology — it tells you where the calendar sits, not this week's case counts, and we label it that way rather than dress a seasonal curve up as live surveillance.
What to do with it: the score rising through autumn is the cue that vaccination time has arrived — October to November gives antibodies time to build before the peak, and matters most for over-65s, pregnant women, young children and anyone with heart, lung, kidney or immune conditions. At today's low seasonal level, a summer fever is far more likely to be something other than flu — and worth a doctor's opinion if it lasts.
Cold stress in Palermo: the other end of the index
Cold-stress score 0.0/10 — tonight's minimum around 21°C
Palermo winters are among Italy's mildest: frost is essentially unknown near the coast, and the cold pillar idles near zero most of the year. What passes for cold risk is damp unheated housing during winter rain spells, with snow staying on the mountains behind.
Across Europe, cold claims more lives each year than heat — mostly quietly, through winter's extra heart attacks, strokes and respiratory infections rather than hypothermia. Cold air raises blood pressure and thickens blood within minutes, narrows airways, and stresses hearts hardest in the first snaps of the season, before bodies and habits adjust. Indoor cold in poorly heated homes does as much damage as the weather outside.
Cold is not a factor today — the score sits low, and this pillar will matter again when the season turns. It stays on the page year-round because an honest index needs both ends of the thermometer.
The Palermo climate-health year
Palermo's year is the most African of any Italian city's: a warm, brief winter; spring by March; olive, grass and parietaria pollen from March to June; then a five-month warm season in which the defining events are scirocco episodes — Saharan air that can carry the city into the low 40s and sometimes brings dust that loads the airways as it heats them. Sea-warmed tropical nights run from July into September. October is still summer's tail; November finally breaks it.
| Season | Typical pattern in Palermo |
|---|---|
| Heat season | June to late September, with scirocco spikes into the low 40s |
| Peak heat | July to late August |
| Tropical nights | Common from July into September along the coast and dense centre |
| Pollen calendar | Olive April–June · grass March–June · parietaria spring to autumn |
| Mosquito season | May to October — tiger mosquito established; dusk in courtyards and gardens |
| Strong-UV months | April to September — midday index 9–10 |
Typical seasonal patterns from established climatology — the live scores above always reflect today's actual conditions.
Visiting Palermo? What travellers should know
Palermo's rhythm is built around its heat, and visitors do best adopting it wholesale: markets and monuments from 08:00, the long indoor middle (the Palatine Chapel and regional museums are the coolest rooms in the city), streets again after 19:00. The Monreale cathedral trip involves an exposed climb — go at opening. On scirocco days, when the air turns thick and tan-coloured, drop outdoor plans entirely; locals do, and anyone with asthma should treat the dust-heat combination as a stay-inside signal.
If you do get ill away from home, you don't have to navigate a foreign health system for something a consultation can solve: speak to a Mobi Doctor physician online from your hotel or apartment.
Medicines that need extra care in Palermo at 27°C
Most medicines are licensed for storage below 25°C; several everyday ones degrade fast beyond that — and a parked car at 27°C outside reaches roughly 43°C inside within half an hour. Today crosses those thresholds, so the following deserve attention.
Insulin all types & pens
Storage: Unopened: fridge 2–8 °C, never frozen. In-use pens: up to 28 days below 30 °C, away from sun.
In this heat: Heat above the labelled range can damage insulin, and warm weather can speed absorption from the injection site in some people, raising hypo risk — check glucose more often and follow the storage instructions for your specific product.
Hot car: A parked car can exceed 50 °C — insulin left inside should be replaced. Appearance is not a reliable damage test (some insulins are normally clear, some normally cloudy): if in doubt, ask a pharmacist.
GLP-1 injections Ozempic · Wegovy · Mounjaro
Storage: Unopened: fridge 2–8 °C. In-use: below 30 °C for a limited window — typically 3–6 weeks, check your leaflet.
In this heat: Above 30 °C the peptide degrades; do not use if the solution has particles or colour.
Hot car: Left in a hot car once — assume compromised and call a pharmacist before injecting again.
Adrenaline auto-injectors EpiPen · Jext · Emerade
Storage: Room temperature 15–25 °C. Never refrigerate — cold can jam the mechanism.
In this heat: Heat degrades adrenaline; a weakened pen may fail during anaphylaxis — check the viewing window stays clear.
Hot car: Glovebox reaches 60 °C+. A pen exposed even once should be replaced promptly.
Testosterone gels · injections · patches
Storage: Below 25–30 °C depending on product; gels are alcohol-based and flammable.
In this heat: Heat degrades gels; skin patches release MORE hormone when hot — absorption shifts on hot days.
Hot car: Do not store in vehicles; vials and gels lose potency within days of heat cycling.
Refrigerated antibiotics & biologics reconstituted suspensions · adalimumab…
Storage: Strict 2–8 °C cold chain. Reconstituted antibiotic syrups usually last only 7–14 days even refrigerated.
In this heat: Warm exposure silently cuts potency — the course may fail without looking any different.
Hot car: Never. A pharmacy-to-fridge trip in a hot car already needs a cool bag.
Thyroid & hormone tablets levothyroxine · HRT
Storage: Below 25 °C, dry, in the original blister.
In this heat: Repeated heat cycling (bathroom, car, windowsill) degrades levothyroxine measurably.
Hot car: Days of car storage can leave tablets under-dosed.
Medicines that change how your body handles heat
- Diuretics — amplify fluid and electrolyte loss — dizziness and falls risk climbs in heat
- Blood-pressure medicines (ACE-i, ARBs, beta-blockers) — can affect fluid balance, blood pressure and heat responses in some people — never stop or change them in hot weather without medical advice
- Lithium — dehydration concentrates blood levels toward toxicity — hydration is critical
- Antipsychotics, anticholinergics, some antidepressants — impair sweating and temperature regulation
- Insulin & sulfonylureas — faster absorption and reduced appetite in heat raise hypo risk
- NSAIDs (ibuprofen, naproxen) — strain the kidneys when dehydrated
- Stimulants (ADHD medicines) — raise core temperature during exertion
Never stop a prescribed medicine because of hot weather — a doctor can adjust timing or dose. Mobi Doctor's physicians can advise online, usually within minutes.
Should I speak to a doctor about heat symptoms?
Heat illness escalates in stages, and the right response depends on which stage you're seeing. Use these three tiers:
ACall 112 now — emergency signs
- Confusion, slurred speech, or disorientation; a seizure; or fainting that doesn't resolve within a minute or two
- Skin that has turned hot and dry after earlier heavy sweating, or a body temperature of 40 °C or more — signs of heatstroke
- Chest pain, severe shortness of breath, or a racing pulse that doesn't settle with rest in the cool
- Heat-exhaustion symptoms — dizziness, headache, nausea, cramps, pale clammy skin — that are no better after 30 minutes of rest, cooling and fluids: this can be heatstroke developing
- A baby, elderly person, or someone with heart disease who becomes limp, unresponsive, or "not themselves" in the heat
While waiting: move them to the coolest place available, remove excess clothing, cool the skin with water and moving air, and do not give fluids to anyone who is drowsy or confused.
BSpeak to a doctor today
- Heat symptoms that improve with cooling but keep returning on hot days, or leave you washed out for more than a day
- Repeated vomiting, or very dark urine / almost no urination through the day
- You take diuretics, blood-pressure, heart, or diabetes medication and feel unwell in the heat — some of these medicines change how your body handles fluid and temperature
- You are pregnant, or you have a heart or kidney condition that feels worse than usual in this weather
CSelf-care and recheck in 30 minutes
- Mild headache, tiredness, or thirst: move somewhere cool, remove unnecessary clothing, drink plenty of water or an isotonic sports drink, and cool the skin — spray or sponge with cool water and fan
- Recheck at 30 minutes. Improving means continue resting out of the heat for the rest of the day. Not improving is an emergency — call 112 (tier A), not a wait-and-see
Local numbers in Italy: 112 — EU-wide emergencies · 118 — ambulance · 116117 — GP out-of-hours (where active) · for non-urgent concerns, a Mobi Doctor physician is online in minutes.
General guidance, not a personal assessment — when in doubt, call. In an emergency always call 112.
Sources for the medical guidance
The clinical guidance on this page follows public authority sources:
Medication storage limits follow each product's manufacturer information (SmPC / patient leaflet) — always defer to the leaflet for your specific product, and to your prescriber for personal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to exercise outdoors in Palermo today?
Yes — heat is not a limiting factor today (heat score 3.3/10). Usual sun protection applies.
Do I need to worry about storing insulin or Ozempic in Palermo this week?
Be attentive. Temperatures around 27°C are near the in-use limit (below 30°C) — avoid sun-exposed storage and hot vehicles; refrigerate unopened stock as normal.
Who is most at risk from today's conditions in Palermo?
Today's Climate Health Score is 6.1/10 (High). Elderly: moderate · Children: moderate · Outdoor workers: moderate · Athletes: moderate. Driven by evening mosquito activity.
Will tonight be a tropical night in Palermo?
Yes — the minimum stays around 21°C (a tropical night is one that never drops below 20°C). Cool the bedroom before sleep, use light bedding and hydrate before bed; hot nights are when heat strain accumulates.
When is the heat season in Palermo?
Typically June to late September, with scirocco spikes into the low 40s, peaking July to late August. Common from July into September along the coast and dense centre. Today's score at the top of this page reflects live conditions, not the seasonal average.
When is pollen season in Palermo?
Olive April–June · grass March–June · parietaria spring to autumn. This page tracks live counts for six species (alder, birch, grass, mugwort, olive and ragweed) and updates them through the day.
When is mosquito season in Palermo?
May to October — tiger mosquito established; dusk in courtyards and gardens. The live mosquito-activity score on this page places tonight inside that season using temperature and humidity — it measures activity conditions, not disease risk.
Highest-risk cities in Europe today
All cities:
Palermo score history — last 30 days
One point per day, refreshed by the daily rebuild. Full archive downloads in the press room.
Embed this live Palermo score
Hotels, tour operators, blogs and local media: show this page's live daily badge on your own site — free to use, and the built-in attribution link is the whole licence. Preview sizes and themes →
Cite this page: “Mobi Doctor — European Climate Health Index, Palermo Climate Health Index”, https://www.mobidoctor.eu/health-index/palermo/ — updated daily, data CC-BY 4.0 with attribution.