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CHARACTERISTICS AND IMPACTS OF THE SEVERE HAILSTORMS ON 18 JUNE 2016 IN NORTHERN MOLDAVIA, ROMANIA

Istrate Vasilică

Abstract

On 18/19 June 2016, the manifestation of two severe supercell thunderstorms in the northern half of Moldavia caused unexpected losses exceeding 14 mil. EUR. Radar estimated hail sizes over 10 cm were recorded over large areas. On the ground level there was recorded hailstones with a diameter greater than 5 cm in some areas. This day?s situation was exceptional due to the synoptic context. There was a strong link between the low-pressure area centered over Southeastern Europe and the formation of a trough (a fusion between a mobile Icelandic Cyclone located with its center over Scandinavia and the Mediterranean low-pressure systems.). As a consequence of this pressure pattern a moist and tropical air advection occurred in our region, going SV, which entered the territory already, sensitized by storms and precipitation excess and by the air much cooler from NV with dynamic features suggesting good conditions for hailstorms to form. In this paper, we investigate the severe hailstorm on the 18th of June from a different appoint of view. By using and combining available observational data sets, the objective is to reconstruct the whole event at a very high resolution and to examine the conditions that are most relevant for convective initiation and the further development of the organized convective cell. Using a series of photos of damaged objects, the aim is to relate different object classes and hailstone sizes. In order to locate the hail swath, we had to use the radar reflectivity from DWSR Doppler C band with a 0.5? elevation to calculate hail kinetic energy and to separate the storm nuclei containing only rain from those which also contained hail. Relations between radar-derived intensity and damage frequency are derived on the basis of Emergency Inspectorate from Iasi counties, which have been massively affected by the storm. This analysis also argues the need to extend the National Hail Suppression System to agricultural areas in the eastern part of Iasi County.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/4.1/s19.114

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