engleski

Trend analysis and climatology of hail in Croatia

A hail climatology provides knowledge used by other governmental, public, and private institutions for better adaptation to this extreme. Croatia is a small country with a complex topography including the lowland part of eastern Croatia which turns into a hilly part as one goes westward, and the Dinarides rise further south, followed by the Adriatic coast. Thus, diversity of hail climatology throughout the Croatia is analyzed. The results are based on hail data from 199 stations and multiple periods. The results showed significant interannual and spatial variability, due to which three subregions were recognized based on the annual cycle of hail. On the South and central part of Croatian coast, the highest hail activity is present in the colder part of the year while the Northern most parts of the coast and continental part of Croatia shows increased summer hail activity. There is also a transitional area located in between, that records the most hail in spring and fall. The trend analysis was made for three time periods from 1900. to 2020., from 1964. to 2019., and from 1995. to 2019. First two periods have shown negative and significant trend in the number of hail days, while recent, 25 yearlong trend, shows change of sign towards positive but not significant trend. Daily patterns of hail show a shift in the daily maximum from morning to afternoon hours as we progress from the coast towards inland, and the coastal part of Croatia generally records higher hail frequencies compared to the continental part. Most dominant air mass (over 50% of time) responsible for the hail is coming from the SW. Winter hail, is usually induced in stronger sheered environments with lower instability. Climatology of hail duration reveiled a log-normal distribution patter further suggesting that most of the hail lasts between 1 and 5 minutes.

hail ; Adriatic ; weather types

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