EXTREME METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA RECORDED DURING WINTER 2009 - 2019 IN TIMISOARA, TIMIS COUNTY.

In the plain area of Timis County, compar()ed to other regions of Romania, the phenomena specific to the cold season of the year do not have a special intensity, because the submediterranean influences make the snow layer shorter, the thickness of the layer is shorter, the periods of frost have a shorter duration and the phenomenon of blizzard is present especially on the mountain ridges. In this paper we want to highlight the abundant episodes recorded in Banat in the last ten years and the deviations of the thermal regime from the studied period. It should be noted that in December 2018 the snow depths in Timisoara reached 42 cm, a situation that can be compared with the snow episode of February 2012, when it was recorded 40 cm of snow . The peculiarity of that situation is that in 2012 there were two consecutive fronts. The first front appeared from 02 February to 06 February and the maximum layer was 37 cm in Timisoara on February 5. The second frontal passage has been manifested since February 12, the maximum layer at Timisoara on the morning of February 14 being 40 cm. Regarding the thermal values, we have to notice the years 2016 and 2017, when the minimum temperature was up to -150C, the minimum of December being registered in 2009, on the 21st of December, the value being -21.40C. For the analysis of the snowfall cases recorded in the studied years we used the forecasts of the ECMWF model (COSMO), a model run in the National Meteorological Administration and satellite images in water vapor and WV RGB at wetterzentrale.de, copyright: EUMETSAT 2018. At the same time, the NMA archive maps for daily snow cover, daily deviations of average temperatures and minimum temperatures were used in this paper. The episodes analyzed in this work were noted by the intensity of the snow phenomenon, were periods of uninterrupted snowfall of more than a day and a half, through the great thickness of the snow layer, its persistence and low temperatures. Meteorologists have warned early, the central and local authorities on the basis of forecasting materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]