On March 23, 2018, on World
Meteorological Day, more than half of Romania was under weather alerts for
heavy snow, blizzard and low visibility. The World Meteorological Organization
has already warned over the effects of climate change, such as blizzards and
very low temperatures, tropical cyclones, heat waves and drought. According to
the meteorological calendar, spring begins on March 1st , and if we
go by the astronomical calendar, it
starts on March 20.
Nevertheless, in the past week Romania has been under
yellow and orange code alerts for snow, blizzard and flooding and has also been
affected by freezing rain, which produced glaze ice on roads and
railways, hampering traffic. On Friday, traffic on the southern Romanian
motorways was affected by blizzard and low visibility. Traffic was also
disrupted on several national and county roads in the same area, where entire
road sections had to be closed because of the blizzard, heavy snow and fallen
trees. Also, dozens of trains were cancelled. The bad weather caused schools
and kindergartens to close down on Friday in the capital Bucharest and in
several counties in the south. Over 13 thousand policemen, firelighters and
gendarmes are ready to intervene if case of emergency.
Here is the Interior
Minister Carmen Dan: I have
called on the citizens to comply with the authorities’ recommendations and not
venture into the roads closed due to blizzard and snow, given that rescue
operations are restricted to the rescuers’ action area and the fact that by
doing that they would put the very life of their rescuers in danger.
In turn, the Health Minister Sorina Pintea has called on
the public health departments to be ready to cope with the special situations
that may emerge under bad weather conditions. The bad weather will stay until
the end of the week and will mostly affect southeastern Romania, where the
strong wind will amplify the cold, says Elena Mateescu, head of the National
Meteorological Administration:
Only on Monday and
Tuesday we will see a slight increase in temperatures, of 6 to 10 degrees
Celsius in most regions and 14 or 15 degrees in the south, with precipitations
likely to be present in the second half of the week.
Experts with the General
Inspectorate for Emergency Situations have warned that after this cold snap, we
should brace for another extreme weather phenomenon – flooding. The Danube’s water level is on the rise, so
authorities have decided to suspend ferryboat transit at the Bechet border
checkpoint between Romania and Bulgaria due to the high water level and the
flooding of the access way to the ferry.