A spectacular weather record. The place in Romania where there were summer temperatures in the middle of February

In a small town in Buzau County, ten years ago there were summer temperatures in mid-February. The temperature was 26 degrees Celsius, then, at Pâtârlagele, being the absolute maximum for the month of February in the country. It was the earliest summer temperature ever recorded in Romania.

Meteorologists call “summer days” those days when the maximum exceeds or equals the value of 25 degrees Celsius. Among all the months of the year, only December and January did not have such temperatures in Romania.

In the second month of the year, temperatures were above 25 degrees Celsius only twice in the country. On February 27, 1995, it was 26 degrees Celsius in Medgidia. The same thing happened on February 16, 2016, at Pâtârlagele (equal record).

The 2016 record is more special in that it came so early in the year, practically 11 days earlier than in 1995. On that day of February 16, a decade ago, there were three other summer temperatures: +25.7 °C in Bucharest Filaret, +25.6 °C in Râmnicu Sărat and +25 °C in Buzău. February 2016 was, on average, 4.9 degrees Celsius warmer in Romania than the average, according to ANM data,

In Pâtârlagele, in February, the difference between the minimum and maximum temperature of the day is on average 12-13 °C, but on the record day it was 25 degrees. More precisely, in the morning the minimum was +1 C, and then the maximum, +26 degrees Celsius.

In the month of the record (February 2016), there were four days with maximums above 20 degrees Celsius in the city of Buzău County, and in the coldest night it was -9 degrees. On the warmest February nights, the minimums drop to 5-6 degrees in the town of 6,000 inhabitants.

The weather station has been operating since 1961 and is located in the Pâtârlagele depression, at an altitude of 290 m, on the upper reaches of the Buzău River, according to a description published by the National Agency for National Statistics.

At Pâtârlagele, it is also said in the description, there are the most favorable conditions in Romania for the appearance of the warm and dry wind called foehn. The phenomenon is more common in late winter and early spring and is manifested by sudden temperature increases of 5–10 °C in just 15–30 minutes.

Very rarely, in the middle of February it can snow extremely much, and the record for the snow cover is from February 14, 2012, when it was 67 cm thick. There is generally little precipitation in the winter months.

The region is part of the Subcarpathians of curvature. In the coldest winter days, the temperature dropped below -20 degrees Celsius in the city located 60 km from Buzău.