Romania under the grip of severe weather conditions

Strong atmospheric instability in Romania

România Internațional, 06.06.2022, 13:45

The first summer month in
Romania has been marred by a strong atmospheric instability. Weather forecast
services have issued alert codes, and so did the hydrological authorities
countrywide. Thunderstorms have been reports, but also heavy downpours, storing
winds, gales and even hailstone. Water quantities per square meter have
exceeded 20 to30 litres, and even 40 litres, in isolated areas. Such manifestations
have made their presence felt the whole past
weekend. From Friday and all through to Monday, at day-clean, traveling from
the West to the East, there were strong storms, with thunder and lightning,
with downpours and wind blasts. A cloud burst had been reported a couple of
days before across the country; another cloudburst has hit Bucharest this time
as well. Sunday night a severe weather code red alert was issued for Romania’s
capital city, including strong gales, small and medium-sized hailstone, heavy
downpours and thunderstorms that occurred quite often. In the meantime, the
alert code was revised downwards, from red to yellow. Trees were felled by the
strong winds, there were also trees that fell over vehicles. They were removed thanks
to the intervention of the Bucharest-Ilfov Emergency Situations Inspectorate.

We recall that a week ago traffic
in Bucharest was paralyzed across the capital city’s main thoroughfares and
boulevards because of the heavy downpours that literally flooded several traffic
roads, while traffic lights went out of order at several junctions across the
city. This time, traffic has been less affected for the simple reason that the
severe weather phenomena occurred during the night, before Bucharesters departed
for their offices, their education units or other destinations.

A code orange alert has also
been issued for several localities across the central Romanian county of Harghita,
where Sunday night a severe power cut was reported for roughly 1,000 households,
because the strong wind affected the power transformation facilities. Another
code orange alert was issued for the southern Romanian counties of Giurgiu and Dambovita.
For a couple of dozens of minutes, jointly with the counties of Calarasi and Ialomita,
also in the south, the county of Ilfov was even under a code red alert for
gales and hailstone.

Traffic along the Bucharest-Constanta
Sun Highway became difficult because of the heavy downpours. During the night, an
impending severe weather code red alert has been issued for localities in the
counties of Mehedinti, Caraş-Severin and Constanţa, all in the southern
part of Romania. The people living there
received RO-ALERT messages on their cell phones. The storm fell several trees
in the municipal city of Constanta and in other localities in the south. A tree
fell over a car while eight others, on the roadway. The heavy downpour flooded
two houses and a church in Constanta. With two passengers inside, a car was
blocked in the water. Military firefighters carried intervention operations so
that all those situations could be solved. A code yellow alert has been issued elsewhere
across the country. The severe weather warnings have been lifted on Monday
morning. According to the weather forecast services’ maps, on Monday morning
Romania has yet again become a green zone, with no code alert or other kind of warning
to be issued.

(EN)