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PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF THE STUDY ON THE SNOWFALL CHANGES AND VARIATION OF MAXIMUM SNOW COVER DEPTH FOR THE TERRITORY OF BULGARIA (1961-2015)

Dimitar Nikolov

Abstract

Snow cover is an important climatic factor and its changes have a strong influence on water resources and water balance in Bulgaria, as well as on the development of agriculture, tourism, transport and others. The main objective of this study is to analyze the long-term time series of snow cover depth and snow or mixed precipitation types, as well as to summarize the results for each administrative district in Bulgaria. Data from 246 weather stations of the meteorological network of the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology for the period 1961-2015 are used. All stations are divided into two groups according to their elevation ? lowlands (up to 800m altitude) and mountainous (above 800 m altitude). The frequency distribution of 24-hour precipitation amounts (snow or mixed types) is calculated in 20 mm increments, and then averaged for each of the 28 administrative districts. The precipitation amounts up to 20 mm have the highest frequency, while only individual cases of snowfall over 80 mm are observed. For lowlands, the mean maximum snow cover depth varies between 19.5 cm and 39.4 cm. In North West Bulgaria, the change of long-term average of the maximum snow cover depth is more smoothed, but the absolute maximums are lower than those for Central North and North East Bulgaria. For South Bulgaria the largest range of variation is observed in some districts of southeastern parts of the country.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/4.1/s19.130

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