The \u201cPerfect Storm\u201d: From Across the Atlantic to the Hills of Genoa

The city of Genoa, Italy, nestled between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Apennine Mountains, was rocked by severe flash floods on 4 November 2011. About 500 millimeters of rain\u2014a third of the average annual rainfall\u2014fell in 6 hours, killing six people and devastating the city center. A storm of this intensity is considered to be a multicentennial-return-period event. The torrential rainfall inflicted the worst disaster Genoa has experienced since October 1970, when a similar event killed 25 people. The peculiar fine-scale properties of this event motivate a comprehensive research effort in the field of predictability of severe rainfall processes over areas of complex orography