“Winter is not over yet.” Warning from climatologists about what may follow after the severe snow episode

This winter was characterized by more episodes of frost compared to previous years, and periods of cold, snow and blizzards may still occur in the coming weeks, warned Roxana Bojariu, the head of the Climatology department within the ANM, to Digi24.

After “the most severe winter episode this year”, the snow is retreating from our country, but the weather will cool considerably in the coming days throughout Romania, according to the ANM forecast.

Roxana Bojariu warned on Thursday, at Digi24, that winter is not over, and such episodes, with snow and blizzard, may still take place in Romania in the coming period.

“And March is a capricious month, and in 2017 – it's true, a rare phenomenon – we had blizzards in the second part of April. As we move towards the warm season, the probability of such episodes decreases. But let's still be careful in the coming weeks, even if a larger scale change is seen, because the Atlantic cyclones are starting to make their presence felt and we are moving from a negative phase of the oscillation arctic, at a phase that mainly means air transport from the ocean and the European continent, so a transport that benefits us from the point of view of the thermal regime”, said Bojariu.

The climatologist explained that, in recent years, these episodes of snow with a layer of snow, especially in the lowlands, have been rare and this is the trend in the future as well.

“However, that does not rule out the presence of events like these that we had this year in January and February, even with global warming. There can be limited periods of time where we have severe winter conditions, and even if they are rarer, they can be quite intense. But once again, this winter is not over yet,” said Bojariu.

Risk of flooding due to accumulated snow

According to the ANM climatologist, this winter was characterized by several colder episodes compared to previous winters, and “what was special was the very sudden transition, in which we have differences of 10 degrees, maybe even more, in the thermal regime”.

Bojariu also warned that there is a risk of flooding after the snow melts.

“There have been such estimates and warnings from our fellow hydrologists, and there will probably be more, as the melted snow combines with precipitation. We will have to pay attention to the updated weather and hydro information, including those with immediate anticipation a few hours before, the so-called nowcastings, which can specify much better where the extreme phenomena can occur and what their time interval is much more effective,” she explained.