Civil protection authorities issued a flood alert Friday for areas north of Rome because of the torrential rain over the past two days has swelled the Tiber River.
A major pre-winter storm, the second in less than a month, has been battering all of Italy for more than two days and the brunt of the bad weather is currently over the south and the lower Adriatic regions.
Calabria was perhaps the region hit hardest over the past 24 hours and already three people lost their lives there.
After the two fatalities on Thursday, rescue workers on Friday found the body of a 55-year-old man who disappeared after a bridge collapsed.
The Tiber is already running well over 10 meters above normal and experts said the swell should peak between 6pm and 8pm Friday and remain at maximum levels, possibly close to 20m higher, for as long as 20 hours.
Special attention is being paid to the many bridges crossing the Tiber, some dating back to Ancient Roman times.
The Aniene river, which flows into the Tiber in the capital's northern sector, has already overflowed and several main roads, including the via Nomentana, have been closed off.
Several sports fields along the Tiber within the city limits have also been flooded.
Civil protection authorities said the situation along the Tiber remained under control and there were no immediate plans for any evacuations of residents.
The national roads agency ANAS said on Friday snow was creating dangerous conditions in the north as well as the central region of Abruzzo while heavy rains had caused havoc on many roads throughout the country, from Piedmont in the north to the deep south and Sicily.
The Italian Farmers Confederation (Cia) has estimated that this latest pre-winter storm, the second in less than a month, has caused over 200 million euros in damages to agriculture and called on the government to declare a state of emergency.
The Coldiretti farmers' union has issued a warning that due to the heavy rains as many as seven out of ten municipalities in Italy were at risk of land or mudslides.
'Acqua alta' (high water) returned to Venice for the fifth day in a row with the morning high tide 110cm above normal. Officials said the phenomenon will return with the next high tide Friday night and should run about 105cm above normal.
Due to the heavy snowfall in the northeastern Veneto and Trentino regions, 70-100cm in the last 24 hours, the avalanche alert has risen to four on a scale of five.
Snow depths in the eastern Alps are now much as two meters.
The situation has improved somewhat in Tuscany where the levels of the Arno and Ombrone rivers, which on Thursday rose to alarm levels, subsided during the night. However, they remain under watch in the event of possible new rainfall.
The brunt of the Atlantic storms is currently over southern Italy and and the eastern Adriatic regions.
In Sicily, forest rangers and civil protection workers on Friday finally reached a camp on Mt Etna, some 2,000m above sea level, where eight boy scouts had sought refuge for the past four days.
However, there as no one in the refuge and it appears the scouts, who were believed to have finished their provisions, decided to descend the volcano's north side on their own.
The scouts were later found not far from the refuge by following their tracks in the snow.
Traffic in Palermo continued to be plagued by fallen trees and branches as well as flooded underpasses.
High winds and raging seas continue to keep ships from reaching the small islands north of Sicily, where on Stomboli residents are said to be running low on food.
The big ferries are operating, although with delays, from Palermo to Naples and Genoa and the situation is expected to improve slightly later in the day.
Several schools in the southern region of Basilicata remained closed on Friday due to the bad weather.
In the southeast region of Puglia a 15-m fishing trawler sank while at its mooring in the port of Gallipoli as the town found itself battered by both strong southeast and southwest winds.
Elsewhere in Puglia heavy rains and strong winds caused numerous landslides, local flooding and trees to be blown down.
Over 100 stray dogs were killed at a refuge-kennel near Reggio Calabria when it was swept away by a flash flood.
