Ovada

Ovada
Comune
Comune di Ovada
Ovada Location of Ovada in Italy
Coordinates:
Country	Italy
Region	Piedmont
Province / Metropolitan city	Alessandria (AL)
Frazioni	Costa, Gnocchetto, Grillano, San Lorenzo
Government
• Mayor	Paolo Lantero
Area
• Total	35.3 km2 (13.6 sq mi)
Elevation	186 m (610 ft)
Population (31 December 2014)
• Total	11,613
• Density	330/km2 (850/sq mi)
Demonym(s)	Ovadesi
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	15076
Dialing code	0143
Patron saint	San Paolo della Croce
Saint day	October 18.th
Website	Official website

Ovada (Uà and Guà in Ligurian, Ovà in Piedmontese) is a comune (municipality) of 11,613 inhabitants in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, located in the "Alto Monferrato" area about 90 kilometres (56 mi) southeast of Turin and about 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Alessandria.

Ovada is the main comune of the Ovadese area, an area of the Lower Piedmont and Upper Monferrato, located in the southern portion of the province of Alessandria, bordering south with Liguria and precisely with the Metropolitan Borough of Genoa and with the Province of Savona. The area includes 16 municipalities and about 30,000 inhabitants.

Territory

The area, located on the northern foothills of the Ligurian-Piedmontese Apennines and at the entrance of the Stura valley leading to the Turchino pass, is hilly, tending to mountainous heading south, with plains where agriculture is practiced and where the industries have established their factories near the main connections. The city lies on the confluence of the Stura of Ovada torrent into the Orba river, always strategic location for businesses, at an altitude of 186 meters above sea level.

The fauna includes badgers, dormice, deer, wild boar, martens, squirrels, hares, partridges, foxes and weasels. Submit nocturnal birds like owls, hawks, kestrels and buzzards. The most popular fish is trout.

Climate The climate is temperate with quite marked features of continental climate. Being protected from the south by the south and south-west winds by the chain of the Apennines, the winters have moderate snowfalls: Ovada receives more snowfall than other Italian towns located at the same altitude since the territory of the low Alessandrino and generally in Lower Piedmont, is often home to major inversions that warm southerly winds fail to unseat. Also for this reason, morning temperatures in winter easily drop below 0 °C. The close proximity to the Ligurian Sea (less than 25 km as the crow flies) where atlantic cyclones often dig deep minimum of low pressure, combined with the Orographic lift effect of the Apennines south of Ovada, mean that precipitation proves fairly abundant especially in the autumn months. Spring is often very windy and moderately rainy. Summer in Ovada is the driest season unlike the rest of the Piedmont (where, due to the proximity of the Alps, storms often form) as the proximity of the Ligurian Sea determines a more stable, although because of the proximity watershed Ligurian-Po can sometimes create storms as Atlantic wet infiltration approaches. Remaining, even in summer, rather windy, the summer weather in Ovada hardly looks sultry and temperatures only during strong African high waves exceeds 30 °C. In the fall with the return of the Atlantic cyclones the weather is often gray and rainy and occasionally the fog appears although much less than in other areas of Piedmont and the Po Valley. Of note also that Ovada is affected for a few days a year of moist air coming from the Ligurian Sea, called Marin, which in some cases can even lead the smell of salt air in these territories and mild temperatures even in winter.

Ovada borders the following municipalities: Belforte Monferrato, Cremolino, Molare, Rocca Grimalda, Rossiglione, Silvano d'Orba, Tagliolo Monferrato, and Trisobbio.

Notables

• Saint Paul of the Cross (1694–1775), mystic.