Firenzuola is one of the most extended districts of the surviving Romagna-Tuscany. Its district territory extends in the mountain area of Santerno river valley, beyond the Apennines crest, which explains the popular verses which describe this village as "il bel paese che il Santerno bagna, ove si parla tosco in terra di Romagna" (the beautiful village in which Santerno river flows through, where they speak Tuscan in the land of Romagna).
The territory is characterized by a particular geological structure where, in more than one place, the Marnoso Arenacea Formation, an issue of national and international academic interest, emerges from the terrain. Among the other geological peculiarities of this area, we find the formation of the Sasso di San Zanobi, located in the locality of Caburaccia, close to Raticosa Pass, around which the San Zanobi legend arose.
From Futa Pass, at an elevation of 900 m a.s.l., there is the Santerno river spring; the river traverses the namesake valley to flow into the Rhine as its bigger tributary. Firenzuola's territory is rich of watercourses that flow into Santerno river attracting every summer a lot of bathers who consider it a better alternative to the seaside. The river, in its intermediate mountain stretch, thanks to its particularly copious flow rate of the curvy course, especially in spring, is perfect for canoeing competitions, and, together with Limentra Inferiore creek, Enza river and Trebbia river, is the main watercourse in the northern Apennines for this aim.
The climate, considering the position and the elevation, is temperate with a warm summer, even if temperatures and precipitations may vary much according to the different suburbs. Summers are generally crisp, especially in the nighttime, in every locality of the district; however, in the daytime, temperatures may sometimes increase substantially in case of foehn winds originating from the Apennines ranges. Winters are frigid, with minimum temperatures that can fall highly under zero degrees between December and March; snow precipitations are very frequent and sometimes even abundant. The hydrological station of Firenzuola, at present supervised by ARPA Emilia-Romagna, on 8 January 1985 registered -26.0 °C, a value that is considered the official absolute minimum temperature documented so far by meteorological services in the whole Tuscany.
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