This year, Christmas will arrive with warmer weather than usual. The temperature will also reach 17 degrees, which is 14 degrees above normal for this period. Even if there are warnings in some areas of the country, the weather in general will be warmer than usual. “We’re going to have a warm Christmas as we’ve been used to in recent years, let’s talk about the Christmas period and the transition between years of warmer than usual weather. Practically, the last winters also brought us warmer weather during this period, at least in the lower regions of the terrain, and unfortunately without a layer of snow,” said Director General of the National Meteorological Administration (ANM) Elena Mateescu.

We’re getting less and less snow compared to previous decades — not just at Christmas, but in winter in general. What does the long-term snow cover data for Christmas show? The analysis, signed by the physicist Bohdan Antonescu on InfoClima.ro, shows how the Christmas snow developed in several cities of the country.

How much snow fell in Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara and Iași in the last 70 years

Physicist Bohdan Antonescu analyzed data from 1950 to 2022, the analysis was limited to a few cities and was conducted only at Christmas. It is also important to note that Christmas weather is a local phenomenon and can vary greatly from one region to another. But the results presented below also seem to point to a possible impact of climate change on Christmas weather.

In Bucharest, in the last 10 years, the thickness of the snow layer did not exceed 20 cm. And of those 10 years, only half were snowy – a big change compared to previous decades.

Source: InfoClima.ro

We can see a similar change in Timisoara.

Source: InfoClima.ro

In Iasi and Cluj, there is an increase in the last decade, at Christmas, with a small layer of snow.

Source: InfoClima.ro

Source: InfoClima.ro

You can still hope for snow on Christmas

According to an analysis by Infoclimate, the average global temperature has risen by about 1.2°C since the pre-industrial period (1850-1900), and this could mean milder winters with warmer temperatures at Christmas now and changes in the distribution of precipitation compared to previous decades.

So instead of a constant layer of snow and cold — as we’re used to — we have warm weather with no snow or even rain during the holidays. But in the coming decades, the trend is towards milder winters.

But this does not mean that in winter we will not have extreme events – heavy snowfalls, blizzards – in all regions of Romania, not only in the mountainous ones. There is research linking climate change to changes in the jet stream and polar vortex with a direct impact on winter extremes.

Read the full analysis at InfoClima.ro