Spring in Romania promises to be warmer than usual, and summer – hot and dry, which is especially worrying for Dobruja. In the coming years, intense short-term rains should be expected, and in the summer the amount of precipitation in general will decrease, said Roxana Boyariu, climatologist of the National Meteorological Administration, in an interview with HotNews.ro.

Statistics show that we can expect a hot and dry summer

“Spring is forecast to be warmer than usual across Europe, even if the signal in precipitation is not very clear. A warmer spring is also expected in Romania,” says Roxana Boyariu.

It is still too early to predict what the summer of 2023 will be like for us, but as the statistics of past summers show, against the background of global warming, we can expect higher temperatures compared to the norm of the base period.

“Unfortunately, in Romania we have a lot of problems with water resources, in the eastern and southeastern areas, especially in Dobrudja, and in these areas we still have moderate, extreme and severe soil drought,” says climatologist Roxana Boyariu of ANM .

She believes that it is necessary to carefully monitor the situation in Dobruja, because if there are problems with the lack of rain in winter and spring, there is a high probability that these problems will remain in the summer. There may be difficulties in the east of Moldova, but the rest of the territory has had a little more rain in recent months.

Last year, the areas with the least amount of rain were also affected, they have not recovered during the last months, and at the European level it is a very big problem for the southern part, while in Romania it is a problem for the east and the southeast, explains Roxana Boyariu.

At the end of the article, read about how precipitation has been distributed in Romania over the past six months, and Dobrudja is the “champion” of drought. Sulina is a weather station where in 2022 the least amount of precipitation fell in the country, below 160 mm.

According to the ANM, 2022 was the third warmest year in the history of meteorological measurements in Romania. The five warmest years from 1900 to 2022 are: 2019, 2020, 2022, 2015, and 2007. The coldest summer of the past decade was 2018, but such summers are becoming the exception rather than the rule.

The transitional seasons, i.e. spring and autumn, are getting shorter. Changes are much more visible in the “solstice” seasons, i.e. in summer and winter, but also in transitional periods there is a tendency to increase temperatures.

January 2023 brought numerous temperature records, some of which were the highest in the last century for the month of January. In the summer of 2022, there was a long heat, and in June it was 37 degrees in Maramures, 38 degrees in Krishan, the old records for more than 90 years “fell”.

Sometimes people say after a few cold days that there is no global warming, but we must not forget that “global warming” means that some regions are much warmer than usual, while other regions may have cold episodes, but in general, taking all information together, temperatures are higher than 20-30 years ago.

Short-term heavy rains

In the future, we should expect more and more short episodes of rain that will be intense, which will not benefit agriculture.

“I would also pay attention to the increase in the intensity of precipitation, because this phenomenon is present in most continental areas. It will increase as the global warming signal intensifies, and depending on local factors, the impact could be very severe for local communities. Think of areas in the country that have been deforested and where the increase in precipitation intensity is accompanied by much greater amounts that fall in a short time, locally, and their effect is amplified because there is nothing to stop them,” says Roxana Boyarius. There will also be problems with floods coming from the mountain slopes.

And in the cities, the increase in the intensity of precipitation brings problems, especially since the infrastructure is not well established and the sewage system does not cope.

Such examples, when as much rain fell in one day as in two months, were also in 2022 and 2023. For example, on September 3, 2022, 99.4 mm was measured in Urzichen. Another example, a few days ago: 62.1 mm in Baraolta on August 30, 2022, surpassing the record that dates back to August 1983 for the town in Covasna County. The data is taken from the monthly specifications published by the ANM.

The highest 24-hour rainfall (mm) recorded in 2022 was 186.8 mm at Rânca weather station on 2 September. Practically, more rain fell in Ranka in one day than in Sulin in a whole year!

There is no increasing or decreasing trend in annual precipitation, but there is an increase in seasonal precipitation in autumn, but this is not something clearly established and clear.

“Our models show us another clear signal about precipitation in the future: there will also be a change in the average summer precipitation pattern. Precipitation will decrease during the summer, while precipitation will increase in all seasons. .”

This means that during the summer we will have less rainfall overall, concentrated in fewer events, but with a much larger amount/event, which is not good because the soil is not sufficiently charged. Basically, there will be a few instances where there will be no rain at all for a long time, but when it rains, it will rain heavily.

ANM data also shows that the number of days with showers (short episodes of rain) has increased.

What happened in Romania with the rains in the last six months and where there was a big drought

February 2023 – More rain than usual in Transylvania, but much less rain in the Danube Delta and central Muntenia. In Titus, the amount of precipitation was only 0.5 mm. In Constanta, it rained 86% less than the average for the month, in Buzau the value was -88%.

January 2023 – The warmest month of January on record, setting many rainfall records. There were also small areas with a small amount of precipitation (Botoshani, deviation -77%).

December 2022 – In some areas there was no rain and almost no snow: The lowest amount of precipitation this month was less than 10 mm and was recorded in Moldova, at the weather station Tg. Neamts (8.3 mm) and in the Danube Delta, in Sulin (8.5 mm).

November 2022 – Rainier than usual for this period across the country, with the exception of the Constanta – Mangalia area.

October 2022 – There was very little rain throughout the country, with some stations not much, such as Ploiesti, 0.3 mm. Among the cities where five to six times less rain fell than usual for the tenth month, there are: Buzeu, Galats, Kalaras, Tirgovishte, Pitesti. Craiova, Drobeta Turnu Severyn or Barlad.

September 2022 – After several months of drought, there is more rain in the west of the country, but little in the Dobruja region and the Danube Delta.

​In 2022, there were several months with too little rain, but there were also plenty. In the wettest place, 12 times more precipitation fell than in the driest place.

In 2022, total precipitation ranged from 159.7 mm recorded at Sulina weather station to 1,967.1 mm at Stana de Valais.

The total amount of precipitation in 2022 on average across the country was 553.2 mm, which is 18% less than the standard interval (1991-2020). The values ​​of deviations of the monthly amount of precipitation were negative in eight of the 12 months of the year and ranged from 6% (December) to 68% (October).