VOLUME 143

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

MARCH 2015

Tornadoes in Romania
BOGDAN ANTONESCU
Centre for Atmospheric Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of
Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

AURORA BELL
Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
(Manuscript received 2 June 2014, in final form 23 September 2014)
ABSTRACT
The first tornado climatology for Romania is presented based on datasets attained from three periods
between 1822 and 2013. The historical period (18221944) contains 33 tornado reports originating from
historical newspaper archives and publications of the Romanian Meteorological Institute. Evidence of tornado observations in Romania before the nineteenth century is found in the representation of tornadoes in
the Romania folk mythology. The socialist period (194589) contains only seven tornado reports, likely because during this period it was believed that tornadoes did not occur in Romania. The recent period (1990
2013) contains 89 tornado reports that came from mass-media sources and eyewitness reports. Of the 129
tornadoes from the Romanian tornado database, 98 were reported between May and July with a peak in May
(36 reports). Most of the tornadoes (28 reports) occurred during the afternoon hours 15001659 local time.
Tornadoes were more frequently reported over eastern Romania compared with other regions of the country,
with a maximum over southeastern Romania [0.370.45 (105 km2)21 yr21].

1. Introduction
Tornado climatologies are important for understanding the formation and characteristics of severe convective
storms, and also for better quantifying the risks that tornadoes pose. The reported frequencies of tornadoes
are, in general, lower in Europe compared to the
United States. In his study on tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe, Alfred Wegener estimated that at
least 100 tornadoes occur each year in Europe
(Wegener 1917). More recently, Dotzek (2003) estimated that 329 tornadoes and waterspouts are observed each year in Europe, based on a survey among
the participants of the Second European Conference
on Severe Storms. Groenemeijer and Khne (2014)

Denotes Open Access content.

Corresponding author address: Dr. Bogdan Antonescu, Centre

for Atmospheric Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Simon Building,
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
E-mail: bogdan.antonescu@manchester.ac.uk

showed, based on the data from the European Severe

Weather Database (Dotzek et al. 2009) between 2006
and 2013, that the average annual number of tornadoes and waterspouts in Europe is 483, representing
4.8 (105 km2)21. By comparison, the average annual
number of tornadoes (no waterspouts) in the United
States between 2006 and 2013 was 1228, representing
12.5 (105 km2)21, based on the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration publication Storm Data
(e.g., Smith et al. 2012; Thompson et al. 2012). Although the threat is apparently smaller in Europe
compared with the United States, the true magnitude
of the tornado threat in Europe is not known because of
the lack of assembled datasets. Despite their importance, it was only recently that some of the European
countries started a systematic documentation of tornado events and developed tornado climatologies.
Tornado climatologies have been published for 14 (32%)
of the 44 countries that have their capital city within
Europe, covering approximately 2 958 988 km2 (30%)
of the European surface area (9 930 054 km2). The
European tornado climatologies mainly focused
on northern, southern, and western Europe and, to

DOI: 10.1175/MWR-D-14-00181.1
2015 American Meteorological Society

689

690

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

VOLUME 143

FIG. 1. The spatial distribution of tornado climatologies in Europe. The countries for which tornado climatologies
have been published (Table 1) are represented in green, and the climatologies for eastern Europe are labeled.
Romania is represented in orange.

a lesser extent, on eastern Europe (e.g., Szilrd 2007;

Brzdil et al. 2012; Simeonov et al. 2013) (Fig. 1 and
Table 1).
For Hungary, Szilrd (2007) developed a synoptic
climatology of damaging tornadoes (defined as tornadoes producing any type of damage) reported between
1990 and 2001. Before 1990, damaging tornadoes were
estimated to occur less than once in a decade. Between
1990 and 2001, 36 tornadoes were reported, of which 18
were damaging tornadoes. The increase in the number
of tornado reports after 1990 was attributed to an increase of vulnerability of society and industry, an increase in the public awareness and also to a possible
intensification of convective activity (among [those]
years were record hot summers) (Szilrd 2007, p. 264).
Brzdil et al. (2012) analyzed the spatial and temporal
distribution of tornadoes in Czech land (recent Czech
Republic) from 1119 to 2010. During this, period 307
tornadoes occurred in 264 tornado days (defined as the
days in which a least one tornado was reported). Before
1500 A.D., a total of four tornadoes were reported, and
between 11 and 16 tornadoes were reported for each
century up to 1800. A maximum in the number of

tornado reports was observed between 1931 and 1940

(44 tornado reports) and another maximum in 200110
(56 tornado reports). The recent increase in the number
of tornado reports was attributed to the availability of
relevant sources as well as increased social awareness
and advances in communication technology (Brzdil
et al. 2012, p. 193).
Simeonov et al. (2013) analyzed the tornado reports
for Bulgaria and showed that 57 tornadoes occurred in
51 days between 1956 and 2010. The majority of tornadoes were reported after 1990 (45 reports). For a period
of 35 yr between 1956 and 1990, only 12 tornadoes were
reported in Bulgaria. During this period most people in
Bulgaria thought that tornadoes were exotic and not
typical events for [the] country (Simeonov et al. 2013,
p. 62). The increase in the number of tornadoes after
1990 was attributed to the development of communications and the Internet, which made available the tornado reports collected by amateurs.
The aim of this article is contribute to the climatology
of tornadoes in Europe by presenting the first tornado
climatology for Romania, a country with a long history
of meteorological observations in eastern Europe (the

MARCH 2015

ANTONESCU AND BELL

691

TABLE 1. Climatologies of tornadoes for European regions. The European regions are based on the definition from the United Nations
Statistics Division (available online at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm). The tornado climatology for Turkey was
also included since Turkey is a contiguous transcontinental country, located in western Asia and southeastern Europe.
Region

Country

Study

Study period

Northern Europe

Southern Europe

Finland
Sweden
Lithuania
Estonia
Ireland
United Kingdom
Germany
Austria
France
Italy

Eastern Europe

Spain
Portugal
Greece
Turkey
Czech Republic

Rauhala et al. (2012)

Peterson (2000)
Marcinoniene (2003)
Tooming (2002)
Tyrrell (2003)
Holden and Wright (2004)
Dotzek (2001)
Holzer (2001)
Paul (2001)
Peterson (1998)
Giaiotti et al. (2007)
Gay (2011)
Leito (2003)
Matsangouras et al. (2014)
Kahraman and Markowski (2014)
Setvk et al. (2003)
Brzdil et al. (2012)
Szilrd (2007)
Simeonov et al. (2013)

17962007
17251996
19502002
17952001
19502001
10911999
15871999
191099
16801999
14561992
199199
18252009
19362002
17092012
18182013
11192002
11192010
19962001
19562010

Western Europe

Hungary
Bulgaria

Romanian Meteorological Institute was founded in 1884)

(Fig. 1). This article is structured as follows. Section 2
describes the Romanian tornado database. The spatial
distribution of tornado reports is described in section 3.
The monthly and diurnal distributions of tornado reports
are discussed in sections 4 and 5, respectively. Finally,
section 6 summarizes the results of this paper.

historical database, starts in 1822 and ends in 1944 when

Romania became a socialist country (section 2a). The
second period contains only seven tornado reports for
an interval of 55 yr between 1945 and 1989. The third
period contains the tornado reports between 1990 and
2013, the period during which the RNMA has been
collecting and analyzing tornadoes reports in Romania
(section 2c).

2. Data

a. Historical tornado reports

The definition of a tornado used in this article has

been adopted from the Glossary of Meteorology
(Glickman 2000). Thus, a tornado is defined as a violently rotating column of air, in contact with the ground,
either pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath
a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as
a funnel cloud (Glickman 2000, p. 781). In this article,
the definition was extended by considering all the waterspouts that hit the land as tornadoes, consistent with
the tornado definitions used in other European countries
(e.g., Rauhala et al. 2012). This definition of a tornado
was used by the Romanian National Meteorological
Administration (RNMA) since 2005. The intensity of all
tornadoes in the Romanian tornado database was assessed following the approach of Rauhala et al. (2012),
based on (i) the Fujita scale [F scale; Fujita (1981)] and
(ii) guidance for assigning tornado damage to buildings
[Table 4 in Minor et al. (1977); appendix C in Bunting and
Smith (1993)].
The climatology of tornadoes in Romania was divided
into three periods. The first period, comprising the

The first tornado report in Romania is from the beginning of the nineteenth century, but tornadoes have
been observed before, as is shown by the Romanian folk
mythology related to the figure of the dragon (balaur
in Romanian) and the sorcerer (solomonar in Romanian). For the folk mentality, the dragon is the
Principal of Disorder, which disturbs the order of nature
and human communities by bringing thunderstorms and
hail. The solomonar,1 the Principle of Order, is
a sorcerer that has the power to control the weather
elements and to subdue the dragon (Oisteanu 2013). In
the folklore of other countries, high winds and severe
storms also had supernatural representations or were
interpreted as divine judgment [e.g., Jankovi
c (2000), for
United Kingdom]. We conjecture that tornadoes have
been represented in the Romanian folk mythology as

The term is quite recent and is documented approximately

between 1650 and 1750 in Transylvania, central Romania
(Oisteanu 2013).

692

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

VOLUME 143

FIG. 2. The topography of Romania and the spatial distribution of the folklore sources in which the tornadoes are
mentioned as balauri (yellow circles). The major cities in Romania (with populations greater than 280 000) are
represented by the black circles. Other cities referenced in this article are represented by white circles.

balauri [ale, or hale in southern Romania;

Hasdeu (1887)]. The description of the dragons varies
from one region to another, but with some common
characteristics. Thus, the dragon has a long tail swinging
when it is up into the cloud (representing the funnel
cloud) and slapping with a loud noise when it is touching
the ground (representing the tornado itself); the
dragons head is either the head of a crocodile or the head
of a horse (representing the anvil of the cumulonimbus
cloud); the dragons breath is so cold that [it] is freezing
the water in the clouds thus producing large hail
(sometimes associated with tornadic events); the dragon
is also able to lift people up into the clouds (Marian
1878a,b; Pamfile 1915, 1916; Gherman 1928; Rezus 1972).
Sometimes the dragon takes the form of a winged white
horse, which the solomonar rides through the clouds
(Ionitxa 1982). These winged horses ridden by sorcerers
with meteorological powers are also mentioned in SerboCroatian mythology [graboncijas dijak; Jagi
c (1877)].
Thus, tornadoes were not unknown events in Romania
before the nineteenth century, as shown by the geographical distribution of the folklore sources in which
the tornadoes are mentioned as balauri (Fig. 2). For

southeastern Romania, no folklore sources could be

identified in which tornadoes are represented as dragons,2
despite the fact that a large number of the tornadoes in the
recent period are reported in this region.
The first historical report of a tornado in Romania is
from 4 June 1822 and occurred in Banat (near Timisoara
in Fig. 2). The severe storm, described as a whirlwind, hit
several villages and destroyed houses and churches and
uprooted or snapped large trees, the damages being
evaluated at approximately 90,0000 florins [approximately $1 million (U.S. dollars) in 2014] (Dudas 2006,
p. 45). Most of the historical tornado reports came from
newspaper archives. To find these reports, newspapers
between 18293 and 1944 were studied using archives
from the Digital Library of Bucharest (http://www.
dacoromanica.ro) and the Digital Library of the

2
Volbura is another term used to described whirlwind events
over southeastern Romania (Gherman 1928), but this term is used
in the folklore sources to describe dust whirls (i.e., dust devils) and
not tornadoes.
3
The first Romanian newspapers, Albina Rom^
aneasca and
Curierul Rom^
anesc, were first published in 1829.

MARCH 2015

ANTONESCU AND BELL

Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca (http://

dspace.bcucluj.ro/). National (e.g., Adev
arul, Albina
Rom^
aneasca, Curierul Rom^
anesc, Epoca, Sc^
anteia) and
local (e.g., Albina Carpatxilor, Clujul, Gazeta de Transilvania) newspapers were studied using keyword
searches for tromb
a (from the French trombe or the
Italian tromba word for tornado) [e.g., Hepites (1887)
used the term tromb
a to describe the 9 June 1886
Bucharest tornado], uragan/orcan (from the French
ouragan or the German orkan for strong windstorms)
[e.g., Hepites (1904) used the term uragan to describe
the 29 June 1904 Moscow tornado], tornad
a (tornado), and v^artej (whirlwind). This keyword search
resulted in approximately 2690 archive entries, which
were then analyzed individually to identify tornado
events based on the information from the newspaper
article (e.g., description of an event and its damage,
eyewitness reports, location, and time of occurrence).
Thus, 16 tornado reports (48.5%) of the 33 reports
from the historical dataset are from newspaper articles
(Fig. 3). The most significant tornadic event retrieved
from the newspaper archives is a tornado ranked as
a category 3 (F3) event on the Fujita scale that occurred on 13 May 1912. The tornado killed six people
and injured more than 50 others, and caused extensive
damage to five villages near Dej, central Romania
(Fig. 2).
Tornado reports were also collected from Annals of
the Romanian Meteorological Institute (14 reports),
marginalia [2 reports; Dudas (2006)], and memoirs
[1 report; Michelet (1916)]. The Annals, published between 1886 and 1915, contained monthly summaries of
meteorological data and descriptions, as well as case
studies of significant weather events. The first case study
of a tornado in Romania, describing the 9 June 1886
tornado that hit Bucharest, was published in the second
issue of the Annals (Hepites 1887). The tornado occurred close to the Meteorological Institute, thus allowing detailed observations. At least three houses were
completely destroyed, and one person was killed by the
tornado that occurred between 1700 and 1800 LT (1500
1600 UTC). At the Meteorological Institute, situated
approximately 9 km from the area most affected by the
tornado, the wind changed from easterly to northeasterly and reached a maximum speed of 15 m s21 during
the passage of the storm, which also produced hail with
a diameter of 2 cm. A damage survey was conducted by
Stefan Hepites, the first director of the Meteorological
Institute, wherein the damages were estimated at
200,000 francs [approximately $800,000 (U.S. dollars) in
2014].
There are a series of limitations with the historical
tornado dataset. Thus, not all the newspapers (in

693

FIG. 3. The distribution of tornado reports per decade between

1822 and 2013. The first decade includes 182229 and the last decade includes 201013.

particular, local newspapers) published between 1822 and

1944 were available for analysis. Compared with a tornado damage surveys, a tornado report retrieved from
a newspaper contains a limited description of the event.
This could result in location and time errors. Also, tornado reports were collected by the Meteorological Institute between 1884 and 1915. In 1916, Romania declared
war on AustriaHungary, thus formally entering World
War I, and the Meteorological Institute ceased all activities due to shortage of staff. The activity of the Meteorological Institute was fully restored in 1920, but without
any official publications until the 1950s.

b. Tornado reports during socialist period

For the socialist period (194589), only seven tornado
reports were included in the database (Fig. 3). Two reports came from the monthly meteorological bulletin
published by the Meteorological Institute. In the 1960s,
two tornadoes were documented in the meteorological
observers notebooks, but because they were considered
erroneous observations, they were not included in the
official reports. The keyword search in the digital
newspaper archives between 1945 and 1989, using the
same methodology as for the historical period, resulted
in only two tornado reports. The lack of tornado reports
during the socialist period can be a result of the fact that
in the 1970s and 1980s, the word tornado was forbidden in
the official meteorological reports and in the mass media
reports, despite the previous observations of tornadoes in
Romania. During this period, the senior meteorologists
considered that tornadoes do not occur in Romania because the country is situated too far north (approximately
458N), and thus the Coriolis effect will not allow the
formation of tornadoes, which are confined to the

694

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

tropics (Lemon et al. 2003).4 All the tornadic events

during this period were described as high-wind events,
thus not recognizing the threat of tornadoes. This situation is what Doswell (2003) described as a self-fulfilling
prophecy: denying the existence of tornadoes in Romania
resulted in no record keeping for such events, and when
tornadoes were observed, they were not reported. A
similar situation was described by Setvk et al. (2003) for
the Czech Republic. Another source of tornado reports
for this period is the eyewitness reports received at the
Meteorological Institute after 2002. Thus, one report was
included in the database based on the interview with the
eyewitness.

c. Recent tornado reports

After the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Romanian
Revolution in 1989, there was no formal recognition that
tornadoes can occur in Romania. This situation changed
in August 2002 when an F31 long-track tornado crossing through southeastern Romania was responsible for
at least three fatalities and the destruction of 33 houses
mainly in the village of F
ac
aeni (Lemon et al. 2003).
Although this was not the first F3 tornado documented
in Romania, it was the first F31 tornado whose parent
storm circulation was observed with the new Romanian
Doppler radar network installed in 2002. The radar network comprised five Weather Surveillance Radar-1998
Doppler (WSR-98D) S-band radars and three existing
C-band radars (Ioana et al. 2004). The data provided by the
Romanian radar network and the radar-data algorithms
for mesocyclones (Mitchell et al. 1998) and tornado
detection (Stumpf et al. 1998) were successfully used in
2005 to issue the first tornado warning in Romania
(Teittinen and Schultz 2008). After 2005, a systematic
documentation and analysis of tornado reports was
started at the RNMA with the aim of developing a tornado database for Romania.
Of the 89 tornadoes reported between 1990 and 2013,
85 reports were obtained from mass-media sources and
4 reports were eyewitness reports submitted to the
RNMA. A mass-media report was confirmed if (i)
a photo or a video of the tornado was available (40 reports, 45.0% of all recent reports), (ii) a photo or a video
showing typically tornado damage and interviews with
the credible eyewitnesses were available (26 reports,
29.2%), or (iii) a damage survey or a cases study was
conducted by the RNMA (19 reports, 21.3% of all recent

4
This explanation can also result from the confusion between the
word uragan used to describe tornadoes in the historical database and the use of the word in modern Romanian to describe
tropical cyclones.

VOLUME 143

reports). The eyewitness reports were submitted by professional meteorologists (two reports, 2.2% of all recent
reports) and severe weather spotters (two reports, 2.2%
of all recent reports). Radar and satellite data were analyzed for all the tornado reports after 2002 to confirm
that the radar imagery showed radar echoes or the satellite imagery showed cloudiness during or after the time
of the event. Even with a verification system in place,
there are limitations to the correctness of the tornado
reporting. Thus, not all the recent tornado reports were
well correlated with the cell locations from the radar data.
These differences were associated with locations errors
(e.g., location of the nearest village was provided instead
of the actual location of the tornado) and time errors
(e.g., only an estimate of the actual time of the tornado
was provided).
Altogether, 129 tornadoes that occurred on 112 days
have been reported in Romania between 1822 and 2013.
The majority of the tornadoes occurred over land (121
reports) and eight tornadoes occurred first over water
and then hit the land. Certainly, this dataset is incomplete, as shown for example by the low number of
tornado reports during the socialist period. The Romanian tornado dataset is clearly dominated by recent
events, with an increase in the number of reports after
the year 2000 (Fig. 3). This increase in the number of
tornado reports was observed in other European countries, too. For example, for Finland, Rauhala et al.
(2012) showed an increase from 50 tornado reports between 1990 and 1999, to 130 reports between 2000 and
2007. For Romania, the recent increase in the number of
tornado reports can be attributed to
1) increased public awareness after the F
ac
aeni F31
tornado in 2002;
2) implementation of the WSR-98D radar network in
2002 (Ioana et al. 2004) helped in defining tornado
locations considerably, especially in underpopulated areas, by detecting the larger circulation
pattern in which the tornado was embedded (i.e.,
the mesocyclone);
3) a rapid increase in cellular telephone subscriptions
per 100 inhabitants from 11.2 in 2000 to 105.0 in 2012,
along with a rapid increase in the percentage of
individuals using the Internet from 3.7 in 2000 to 50.0
in 2012;5
4) volunteer severe weather spotters, some of them
trained by the RNMA (e.g., the Association for

5
Source is the World Telecommunication/Information and
Communication Technologies Indicators Database (2013) (available online at http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/
default.aspx).

MARCH 2015

ANTONESCU AND BELL

695

Monitoring Severe Weather Phenomena was founded

in 2010); and
5) the Twister effect hypothesized by Rauhala et al.
(2012) in which the movie Twister (released in 1996)
and documentary reality television series about
tornadoes (e.g., Storm Chasers that premiered in
2007) resulted in an increased awareness among the
public about tornadoes.

3. Spatial distribution
The spatial distribution of tornadoes reports in
Romania is shown in Fig. 4. The distribution of tornado
reports during the historical period reflects the availability of documentary sources rather than the true
distribution. Thus, the majority of tornadoes (29 reports
representing 87.9% of all historical reports) were reported over southern and eastern Romania, a region
that between 1881 and 1913 was the Romanian Kingdom. The region of Romania bounded to the east and
south by the Carpathian Mountain Range was a part of
the AustroHungarian Empire before 1918, and no official reports for this region were available before 1920
(Fig. 4a).
Figure 5 shows the distribution of all tornado reports
between 1822 and 2013 by F scale, in which the F-scale
estimate is the minimum that can be retrieved from the
description of the event. From the 23 historical reports
for which an estimation on the F scale was possible, 11
reports were for weak tornadoes [F0 or F1; Hales (1988)]
and 12 reports were for significant tornadoes (F2 or F3).
The large percentage of significant tornadoes during the
historical period compared with the other periods is because strong tornadoes have a large impact on society and
are therefore more likely to be reported than weak tornadoes (Brooks and Doswell 2001; Verbout et al. 2006).
During the socialist period, the annual average number
of tornado reports decreased from 0.44 (105 km2)21 (yr)21
between 1879 and 1913 to 0.06 (105 km2)21 (yr)21 between 1945 and 1989. All the tornadoes reported during
the socialist period, with one exception (the 12 June 1961
tornado from Cluj), occurred over eastern and southern
Romania (Fig. 4b). The lack of tornado reports is an
artifact of the socialist period and not the result of climatological factors. For example, Iliescu (1989) showed,
based on cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning data between
1966 and 1980, gathered using CG lightning counters,
that the annual average number of thunderstorm days
(days in which at least 15 CG lightning flashes were
detected) varies from 35 to 40 thunderstorm days over
most parts of Romania to 2530 days over southeastern
Romania [Fig. 21 in Iliescu (1989), p. 87]. Geicu and
C^
andea (2008), using data from the Romanian surface

FIG. 4. Spatial distribution of (a) historical tornado reports (33

reports between 1822 and 1944), (b) tornado reports during the
socialist period (7 reports between 1945 and 1989), and (c) recent
tornado reports (89 reports between 1990 and 2013) in Romania.
Tornadoes were classified according to their intensity on the F scale
for weak tornadoes (F0 or F1) (yellow) and significant tornadoes
(F2 and F3) (red). Tornadoes for which an estimation of the intensity was not possible are represented in blue.

696

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

FIG. 5. Number of tornado reports during the historical period

(18221944) (light gray, bar chart), the socialist period (194589)
(dark gray, bar chart), and the recent period (19902013) (solid
line) based on estimated intensity on the F scale.

observation network collected between 1961 and 2000,

showed that the annual average number of thunderstorm days over Romania varies from 30 to 40 days.
Thus, the annual average number of thunderstorm days
is not lower during the socialist period compared with
the average between 1961 and 2010.
For the recent period, the annual average number of
tornado reports increased compared with the previous
periods to 1.55 (105 km2)21 (yr)21 between 1990 and
2013. The tornado reports are most frequent for the low
elevations over southern and eastern Romania with
a maximum over southeastern Romania (Fig. 4c). From
the 41 recent reports for which an estimate of the F scale
was possible, 68.3% (28 reports) were for F0 tornadoes,
24.4% (10 reports) were for F1 tornadoes, and 7.3%
(3 reports) for F2 or F3 (Fig. 5). The small percentage of
significant tornadoes during the recent period can be attributed to a more efficient collection of tornado reports
(particular those for weak tornadoes) and to an increased
awareness among the public. Similarly, Rauhala et al.
(2012) showed that the 29% of the tornado reports in
Finland between 1796 and 1996 were for significant tornadoes, and only 4% of the reports between 1997 and
2007 were for significant tornadoes.
Figure 6a shows the average number of tornadoes per
105 kilometers squared per year based on the tornado
reports between 1822 and 2013 using kernel density estimation (KDE). The KDE for a spatial point pattern
(i.e., tornado locations) assumes that the spatial pattern
has densities at every location, rather than only at the
locations where the events were reported (e.g., Dixon
et al. 2011; Brooks et al. 2003a). In this article,
a Gaussian kernel with a bandwidth of 50 km (comparable with the area for which the RNMA issues severe
weather warnings) was used. The 50-km KDE, calculated on a 10-km output grid to produce a smooth map,

VOLUME 143

shows that the average number of tornadoes is between

0.30 and 0.45 (105 km2)21 (yr)21 [approximately 1.52.25
(105 km2)21 every 5 yr] over northeastern and southeastern Romania, and is lower than 0.22 (105 km2)21 (yr)21
(approximately 1.1 tornadoes every 5 yr) over most of
Romania (Fig. 6a).
The high number of tornadoes over northeastern
Romania can be attributed to the population density
across this region, with high population density resulting
in more tornadoes being reported. Figure 6b shows,
based on data from the Romania National Institute of
Statistics, that the population density in 2003 over
northeastern Romania was greater than 100 people per
kilometer squared. The high number of tornadoes over
southeastern Romania (maximum over Romania) cannot be entirely attributed to the population density.
Compared with northeastern Romania, the population
density over southeastern Romania is lower (7080
people per kilometer squared) with fewer urban areas,
derived from the 200203 Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data at 1-km grid spacing
(Schneider et al. 2003) (Fig. 6b).
The high number of tornadoes over southeastern
Romania can be attributed to the mesoscale environments over this region that are more favorable for tornadoes compared with other regions. Brooks et al.
(2003b) used the National Centers for Environmental
PredictionNational Center for Atmospheric Research
(NCEPNCAR) global reanalysis dataset (Kalnay et al.
1996) for the years between 1997 and 1999 to obtain
vertical profiles that resemble radiosonde profiles (Lee
2002). The profiles were used as proximity soundings to
develop relationships between the environmental variables (e.g., CAPE, 06-km shear, 01-km shear, and 24-km
lapse rate) and severe convective storms in the United
States. These relationships were then applied to make
estimates of the distribution of favorable severe convective storms and tornado environments over Europe.
For Romania, the average number of days with favorable tornado environments is between 4.5 and 6.0 over
southeastern Romania and is lower than 3.0 days over
most of Romania (Fig. 16 in Brooks et al. 2003b, p. 89).
Thus, the results from the present study are consistent
with the results obtained by Brooks et al. (2003b) for the
distribution of favorable tornado environments over
Romania.

4. Monthly distribution
From the 126 tornadoes reported in Romania between 1822 and 2013 containing information on the occurrence month, 125 tornadoes were reported between
March and September and one tornado was reported

MARCH 2015

ANTONESCU AND BELL

FIG. 6. (a) KDE analysis for the tornado reports in the recent dataset (19902013) showing
the annual average number of tornado reports [(105 km2)21 yr21, shaded according to the
scale]. (b) Population density of Romanian counties (people per km2, shaded according to the
scale) and the urban areas (blue) derived from the 200203 MODIS data at 1-km resolution
(Schneider et al. 2003).

697

698

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

FIG. 7. The percentage of the annual total of tornado reports (bar

chart) and tornado days (solid line) occurring in each month between 1822 and 2013.

during wintertime on 24 January 2006. The tornadoes

occurred on 110 tornado days, defined as the days in
which at least one tornado was reported. The earliest
start of the tornado season in Romania occurred on 29
March 2006, when a tornado was reported over T^
arguJiu (southern Romania; Fig. 2), and the latest end of the
tornado season occurred on 23 September 1913, when
a tornado was reported over Tuzla (eastern Romania;
Fig. 2). The majority of tornadoes have been observed
during MayJuly, when 98 tornadoes (77.8% of the reports containing information on the occurrence month)
were reported in 83 days (75.5% of the tornado days)
(Fig. 7). The peak month for tornado reports is May,
with 36 reports representing 28.6% of the reports containing information on the occurrence month. The large
number of tornado reports includes a tornado outbreak
from 7 May 2005, when eight tornadoes were reported
over southeastern Romania. The peak month for tornado days is June with 31 days representing 28.2% of all
tornado days (Fig. 7).
As in Romania, tornadoes in the neighboring countries occur most frequently between May and August,
with a peak in late spring or early summer (MayJune)
[Szilrd (2007) for Hungary; Simeonov et al. (2013) for
Bulgaria]. The peak occurs later in the summer (July
August) over western Europe [Holzer (2001) for Austria; Dotzek (2001) for Germany; Paul (2001) for
France] and northern Europe [Tooming (2002) for Estonia; Marcinoniene (2003) for Lithuania; Rauhala et al.
(2012) for Finland; Peterson (2000) for Sweden; Holden
and Wright (2004) for the United Kingdom; Tyrrell
(2003) for Ireland]. For southern Europe, the peak occurs in late summer and autumn (AugustOctober)
[Gay (2011) for Spain; Leito (2003) for Portugal;

VOLUME 143

FIG. 8. The percentage of the daily total of tornado reports between 1822 and 2013 occurring in 2-h bins starting at the indicated
local time (e.g., 1500 LT indicates the period between 1500 and
1659 LT).

Giaiotti et al. (2007) for Italy; Matsangouras et al. (2014)

for Greece].

5. Diurnal distribution
The diurnal distribution of tornadoes in Romania into
2-h bins in local time (LT 5 UTC 1 2 h), is shown in
Fig. 8. The diurnal distribution is based on 95 tornado
reports (75.4% of all reports) between 1822 and 2013
that contained information on the occurrence time. The
majority of tornadoes (88 reports, 92.6% of all cases)
were reported between 0900 and 2059 LT, with a peak in
the afternoon between 1500 and 1659 LT (28 reports,
29.4% of all cases). The reporting of only seven tornadoes between 2100 and 0859 LT may be because of the
difficulties associated with spotting tornadoes at night
(sunset is approximately at 2100 LT during June
August) or because they occur when the public tends to
be asleep (Ashley et al. 2008). The diurnal distribution of
tornado reports in Romania is similar to those observed
in the neighboring countries. For Bulgaria, Simeonov
et al. (2013) showed that tornadoes tend to occur between 1400 and 1800 LT (80% of all reports) with a peak
around 1600 LT. Tornadoes in Hungary occur most
frequently between 1500 and 1900 LT (72% of all reports) (Szilrd 2007).

6. Conclusions
This study summarizes the tornado climatology of
Romania between 1822 and 2013 based on a dataset
comprising 129 tornadoes reported on 112 days. The
tornado climatology was divided into three periods:

MARCH 2015

699

ANTONESCU AND BELL

(i) the historical period (18221944) during which 33

tornadoes were reported, (ii) the socialist period (1945
89) containing only 7 reports, and (iii) the recent period
(19902013) with 89 tornado reports. The increase in the
number of reports during the recent period can be attributed to increased public awareness (e.g., after the
F
acaeni F31 tornado from 2002, or due to movies and
documentary reality television series on tornadoes), increased access to information and communication
technology (e.g., mobile phones, Internet), and volunteer severe weather spotters. The main conclusions of
the study are as follow.
1) The spatial distribution of tornado reports shows that
tornadoes are more frequently reported over eastern
Romania, with a maximum over southeastern Romania [approximately 1.52.25 (105 km2)21 every
5 yr]. We speculate that the large number of tornadoes over southeastern Romania can be attributed to
the mesoscale environments over this region that are
more favorable for tornadoes compared with other
regions of the country, but further studies are necessary to confirm this hypothesis.
2) The distribution of tornado reports on the F scale
shows that the historical dataset is dominated by
significant tornadoes (F2 or F3) (12 of 23 reports for
which an estimation of the intensity was possible).
This bias toward significant tornadoes can be explained by the fact that strong tornadoes have a large
impact on society and thus are reported more
frequently compared with weak tornadoes (F0 and
F1). With a more efficient collection of tornado
reports and an increased level of awareness among
the public, the recent dataset is dominated by weak
tornadoes (38 of 41 reports for which an estimation of
the intensity was possible).
3) The monthly distribution of the 126 tornado reports
containing information about the occurrence month
shows that tornadoes are reported more frequently
in MayJuly (98 reports), with a peak in May (36
reports).
4) The majority of tornadoes were reported between
0900 and 2059 LT (88 of the 95 tornado reports
containing information about the occurrence time)
with their peak between 1500 and 1659 LT (28 reports).
The Romanian tornado database developed in this
study represents a contribution toward a pan-European
tornado database that will provide the basis for better
understanding the tornado threat in Europe.
Acknowledgments. We thank David M. Schultz from
the University of Manchester for his helpful suggestions
and advice on many aspects of this research and on

improving the manuscript. This work was initiated when

both authors were at the Romanian National Meteorological Administration, and we thank all our colleagues
in the Laboratory of Nowcasting Techniques and Severe
Weather Forecasting for their contributions to the development of the Romanian tornado database. We also
thank Editor Pam Heinselman and anonymous reviewers for their comments that improved our article.
Partial funding for BA comes from Grant NE/H008225/1
from the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council
(NERC) to the Tropopause Folding, Stratospheric Intrusions and Deep Convection (TROSIAD) project at
the University of Manchester and from an AXA Research Fund postdoctoral grant.
REFERENCES
Ashley, W. S., A. J. Krmenec, and R. Schwantes, 2008: Vulnerability due to nocturnal tornadoes. Wea. Forecasting, 23, 795
807, doi:10.1175/2008WAF2222132.1.

Brzdil, R., K. Chrom, P. Dobrovoln, and Z. Cernoch,
2012: The
tornado history of the Czech Lands, AD 11192010. Atmos.
Res., 118, 193204, doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2012.06.019.
Brooks, H. E., and C. A. Doswell III, 2001: Some aspects of the
international climatology of tornadoes by damage classification.
Atmos. Res., 56, 191201, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(00)00098-3.
, , and M. P. Kay, 2003a: Climatological estimates of local
daily tornado probability. Wea. Forecasting, 18, 626640,
doi:10.1175/1520-0434(2003)018,0626:CEOLDT.2.0.CO;2.
, J. W. Lee, and J. P. Craven, 2003b: The spatial distribution of
severe thunderstorm and tornado environments from global
reanalysis data. Atmos. Res., 6768, 7394, doi:10.1016/
S0169-8095(03)00045-0.
Bunting, W. F., and B. E. Smith, 1993: A guide for conducting
convective windstorm surveys. NOAA Tech. Memo. NWS
SR146, Scientific Services Division, Southern Region, Fort
Worth, TX, 44 pp.
Dixon, P., A. E. Mercer, J. Choi, and J. Allen, 2011: Tornado risk
analysis: Is Dixie Alley an extension of Tornado Alley? Bull.
Amer. Meteor. Soc., 92, 433441, doi:10.1175/2010BAMS3102.1.
Doswell, C. A., III, 2003: Societal impacts of severe thunderstorms
and tornadoes: Lessons learned and implications for Europe.
Atmos. Res., 6768, 135152, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(03)00048-6.
Dotzek, N., 2001: Tornadoes in Germany. Atmos. Res., 56, 233
251, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(00)00075-2.
, 2003: An updated estimate of tornado occurrence in Europe.
Atmos. Res., 6768, 153161, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(03)00049-8.
, P. Groenemeijer, B. Feuerstein, and A. Holzer, 2009: Overview of ESSLs severe convective storms research using the
European Severe Weather Database (ESWD). Atmos. Res.,
93, 575586, doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2008.10.020.
Dudas, F., 2006: Catastrofe naturale ^n Transilvania (Natural Disasters in Transilvania). Editura de Vest, 176 pp.
Fujita, T. T., 1981: Tornadoes and downbursts in the context of
generalized planetary scales. J. Atmos. Sci., 38, 15111534,
doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1981)038,1511:TADITC.2.0.CO;2.
Gay, M., 2011: Tornadoes and severe storms in Spain. Atmos.
Res., 100, 334343, doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2010.10.019.
Geicu, A., and I. C^andea, Eds., 2008: Clima Rom^
aniei (The Climate
of Romania). Administratxia Natxionala de Meteorologie,
Editura Academiei Rom^ane, 366 pp.

700

MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW

Gherman, T., 1928: Meteorologie PopularaObservari, Credintxe

si Obiceiuri (Popular MeteorologyObservations, Beliefs and
Traditions). Tipografia Seminarului Teologic Greco-Catolic,
174 pp.
Giaiotti, D. B., M. Giovannoni, A. Pucillo, and F. Stel, 2007: The
climatology of tornadoes and waterspouts in Italy. Atmos.
Res., 83, 534541, doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2005.10.020.
Glickman, T. S., Ed., 2000: Glossary of Meteorology. 2nd ed. Amer.
Meteor. Soc., 855 pp.
Groenemeijer, P., and T. Khne, 2014: A climatology of tornadoes in Europe: Results from the European Severe Weather
Database. Mon. Wea. Rev., 142, 47754790, doi:10.1175/
MWR-D-14-00107.1.
Hales, J. E., Jr., 1988: Improving the watch/warning program
through use of significant event data. Preprints, 15th Conf. on
Severe Local Storms, Baltimore, MD, Amer. Meteor. Soc.,
165168.
Hasdeu, B. P., 1887: Etymologicum Magnum RomaniaeThe
Dictionary of the Historical and Folk Language of Romanians.
Socec and Teclu, 2224 pp.
Hepites, S. C., 1887: Trombe Bucharest. Ciel et Terre, 1 March
188615 February 1887, 234237.
, 1904: Uraganul de la Moscova (The Moscow hurricane).
Analele Institului Meteorologic al Rom^
aniei (Ann. Rom. Meteor. Inst.), 22, 179.
Holden, J., and A. Wright, 2004: UK tornado climatology and the
development of simple prediction tools. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor.
Soc., 130, 10091021, doi:10.1256/qj.03.45.
Holzer, A. M., 2001: Tornado climatology of Austria. Atmos. Res.,
56, 203211, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(00)00073-9.
Iliescu, M., 1989: Manifestari Electrice Atmosferice pe Teritoriul
Rom^
aniei (Atmospheric Electrical Activity in Romanian).
Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste Rom^ania, 144 pp.
Ioana, M., V. Ivanovici, E. Cordoneanu, D. Banciu, A. Apostu, and
B. Ford, 2004: SIMINThe integrated system for meteorological surveillance, forecast and alert in Romania. 20th Int.
Conf. on Interactive Information and Processing Systems
(IIPS) for Meteorology, Oceanography, and Hydrology, Seattle, WA, Amer. Meteor. Soc, 11.2. [Available online at
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/70954.pdf.]
Ionitxa, M., 1982: Cartea v^
alvelor. Legende din Apuseni (The Book
of Spirits. Legends from Apuseni). Dacia, 239 pp.
Jagi
c, V., 1877: Die sdslavischen volkssagen von dem grabancijas
dijak und ihre erklrung (The southern Slavic grabancijas dijak folk tales and their explanations). Arch. Slavische Philologie, 2, 437481.
Jankovi
c, V., 2000: Reading the Skies: A Cultural History of
the English Weather, 16501820. University of Chicago Press,
272 pp.
Kahraman, A., and P. Markowski, 2014: Tornado climatology of
Turkey. Mon. Wea. Rev., 142, 23452352, doi:10.1175/
MWR-D-13-00364.1.
Kalnay, E., and Coauthors, 1996: The NCEP/NCAR 40-Year Reanalysis Project. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 77, 437471,
doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077,0437:TNYRP.2.0.CO;2.
Lee, J. W., 2002: Tornado proximity soundings from the NCEP/
NCAR reanalysis data. M.S. thesis, School of Meteorology,
University of Oklahoma, 61 pp.
Leito, P., 2003: Tornadoes in Portugal. Atmos. Res., 6768, 381
390, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(03)00057-7.
Lemon, L. R., A. Stan-Sion, C. Soci, and E. Cordoneanu, 2003: A
strong, long-track, Romanian tornado. Atmos. Res., 6768,
391416, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(03)00063-2.

VOLUME 143

Marcinoniene, I., 2003: Tornadoes in Lithuania in the period

of 19502002 including analysis of the strongest tornado of
29 May 1981. Atmos. Res., 6768, 475484, doi:10.1016/
S0169-8095(03)00060-7.
Marian, S. M., 1878a: Balaurii (The dragons). Albina Carpatxilor, 2,
2223.
, 1878b: Solomonarii (The sorcerers). Albina Carpatxilor, 4, 5456.
Matsangouras, I. T., P. T. Nastos, H. B. Bluestein, and M. V.
Sioutas, 2014: A climatology of tornadic activity over Greece
based on historical records. Int. J. Climatol., 34, 25382555,
doi:10.1002/joc.3857.
Michelet, J., 1916: Principatele Dunarene: Maria C. A. Rosetti ^n
Revolutxia Rom^ana (Danubian Principalities: Maria C. A.
Rosetti and Wallachian Revolution of 1848). Lui C. A. Rosetti:
La o sut de ani de la naterea sa (18161916), E. Costinescu, Ed.,
Democratxia, 99112.
Minor, J. E., J. R. McDonald, and K. C. Mehta, 1977: The tornado: An
engineering-oriented perspective. NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL
NSSL-82, National Weather Service, Norman, OK, 196 pp.
Mitchell, E. D., S. V. Vasiloff, G. J. Stumpf, A. Witt, M. D. Eilts,
J. T. Johnson, and K. W. Thomas, 1998: National Severe
Storms Laboratory tornado detection algorithm. Wea. Forecasting, 13, 352366, doi:10.1175/1520-0434(1998)013,0352:
TNSSLT.2.0.CO;2.
Oisteanu, A., 2013: Ordine si Haos: Mit si Magie ^n Cultura
Traditxionala Rom^
aneasca (Order and Chaos: Myth and Magic
in Romanian Traditional Culture). 2nd ed. Polirom, 624 pp.
Pamfile, T., 1915: Mitologie Rom^
aneasca (Romanian Mythology).
Socec, 401 pp.
, 1916: Vazduhul (The Sky). Socec, 216 pp.
Paul, F., 2001: A developing inventory of tornadoes in France.
Atmos. Res., 56, 269280, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(00)00077-6.
Peterson, R. E., 1998: A historical review of tornadoes in Italy.
J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn., 7476, 123130, doi:10.1016/
S0167-6105(98)00010-5.
, 2000: Tornadoes in Sweden. Preprints, 19th Conf. on Severe
Local Storms, Minneapolis, MN, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 8992.
Rauhala, J., H. E. Brooks, and D. M. Schultz, 2012: Tornado climatology of Finland. Mon. Wea. Rev., 140, 14461456,
doi:10.1175/MWR-D-11-00196.1.
Rezus, P., 1972: Dochitxa ^mparatitxa. Basme si Poezii Populare din
T ara de Sus (The Empress Dochitxa. Folk-Tales and Poems
from T ara de Sus). Minerva, 435 pp.
Schneider, A., M. Friedl, D. McIver, and C. Woodcock, 2003:
Mapping urban areas by fusing multiple sources of coarse
resolution remotely sensed data. Photogramm. Eng. Remote
Sens., 69, 13771386, doi:10.14358/PERS.69.12.1377.
Setvk, M., M. Salek, and J. Munzar, 2003: Tornadoes within the
Czech Republic: From early medieval chronicles to the internet society. Atmos. Res., 6768, 589605, doi:10.1016/
S0169-8095(03)00075-9.
Simeonov, P., L. Bocheva, and I. Gospodinov, 2013: On space-time
distribution of tornado events in Bulgaria (19562010) with
brief analyses of two cases. Atmos. Res., 123, 6170,
doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2012.07.003.
Smith, B., R. Thompson, J. Grams, C. Broyles, and H. Brooks,
2012: Convective modes for significant severe thunderstorms
in the contiguous United States. Part I: Storm classification
and climatology. Wea. Forecasting, 27, 11141135, doi:10.1175/
WAF-D-11-00115.1.
Stumpf, G. J., A. Witt, E. D. Mitchell, P. L. Spencer, J. T. Johnson,
M. D. Eilts, K. W. Thomas, and D. W. Burgess, 1998: The
National Severe Storms Laboratory mesocyclone detection

MARCH 2015

ANTONESCU AND BELL

algorithm for the WSR-88D. Wea. Forecasting, 13, 304326,

doi:10.1175/1520-0434(1998)013,0304:TNSSLM.2.0.CO;2.
Szilrd, S., 2007: A systematic approach to synoptic tornado climatology of Hungary for the recent years (19962001) based
on official damage reports. Atmos. Res., 83, 263271,
doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2005.10.025.
Teittinen, J., and D. M. Schultz, 2008: Severe thunderstorm and
tornado warnings in Europe. Atmos. Res., 93, 369380,
doi:10.1016/j.atmosres.2008.09.026.
Thompson, R., B. Smith, J. Grams, A. Dean, and C. Broyles, 2012:
Convective modes for significant severe thunderstorms in
the contiguous United States. Part II: Supercell and QLCS

701

tornado environments. Wea. Forecasting, 27, 11361154,

doi:10.1175/WAF-D-11-00116.1.
Tooming, H., 2002: Strong tornadoes in Estonia. Preprints, Second
European Conf. on Severe Storms, Prague, Czech Republic,
Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, 33.
Tyrrell, J., 2003: A tornado climatology for Ireland. Atmos. Res.,
6768, 671684, doi:10.1016/S0169-8095(03)00080-2.
Verbout, S., H. Brooks, L. Leslie, and D. Schultz, 2006: Evolution
of the U.S. tornado database: 19542004. Wea. Forecasting, 21,
8693, doi:10.1175/WAF910.1.
Wegener, A., 1917: Wind- und Wasserhosen in Europa (Tornadoes
and Waterspouts in Europe). Vieweg, 301 pp.