Strong winds battered Rome Wednesday, bringing down trees and snarling traffic, while heavy rains with more to come triggered severe weather alerts in the Italian capital and across much of the country.
Up to 110 mm of rain was forecast through Thursday in Rome where a red alert - the highest on the civil-protection scale - was issued, leading to ramped-up preparations for weather woes.
Authorities ordered school closures for Thursday in the city and province of Rome, including such nearby communities as Fiumicino, as well as in parts of Tuscany and as far south as Calabria.
Red alerts were also issued regions stretching from the Veneto to Umbria, Lazio and Sicily.
Two people were injured in Naples where they were hit Wednesday morning by broken tree branches and lambs were reported drowned on farms in Tuscany, swept away as heavy rains pounded central and northern regions.
In Tuscany and Liguria, boats and helicopters were used to rescue dozens trapped in their homes by flood waters and evacuations were ordered in the coastal regions.
Heavy rainfall also forced evacuations in the province of La Spezia, and triggered new fears for the region around the port city of Genoa where one person was killed and millions of euros' worth of damage was caused by heavy flooding last month.
At least 40 people were evacuated from a Genoa-area building, as rains threatened the stability of its walls.
In the Tuscan city of Carrara, north of Florence, a worker was rescued after he was feared killed when an embankment collapsed after the rain-swollen Carrione River burst its banks and flooded parts of the city. Schools in the area were closed and families evacuated from their homes, with some clambering onto their roofs to get above the flood waters, civil protection authorities said.
Tuscany Governor Enrico Rossi said he would declare a state of emergency for the region.
The area is particularly sensitive to vicious weather because of its history of flooding that has caused several deaths in both Carrara and nearby Massa in the past 12 years.
Venice was hit by acqua alta, or high water, which rose by as much as 115 cm above sea level, forcing locals and tourists to don rubber boots in order to wade through streets as about 15% of the lagoon city was flooded, including iconic St Mark's Square.
Alerts were issued as far north as Piedmont while in Lombardy, the Po river rose more than two meters in 24 hours and rains increased levels of the Adda river and Lake Maggiore by midday Wednesday.
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