Hungary’s Weather and Air Quality
Hungary’s Weather and Air Quality
Since measuring instruments were invented several centuries ago, the most common meteorological data (temperature, barometric pressure and wind) from that time forward can be considered facts. Reliable data have been available on locations in Europe’s and on many in Hungary’s for more than 200 and 100 years, respectively. With this data in hand, it is also possible to describe trends in Hungary’s weather for 1996, which recently added to the multitude of existing facts, but at the same time also demonstrates what kind of extremes a so-called “continental’’ climate is capable of producing. Such extremes are also facts. In the past one or two decades, we have been inclined to explain that such extremes are the result of irreversible changes taking place in the climate – as a consequence of human activity – and have treated such changes as facts.
The truth, however, is that weather extremes, in themselves, still fail to prove that our climate is undergoing irreversible changes, as there have been cases in which unseasonable weather has occurred in our country, as is evidenced in earlier records. Some out-of-the-ordinary cases of unseasonable weather in our century are described in the following section, and the chapter after that is devoted to the description of trends in Hungary’s weather in the year 1996, during which extremes were just as well the case as in earlier years.
One fact, however, should be kept in mind. Human activity (industry, traffic, etc.) undoubtedly impacts (detrimentally) on a fundamental component of weather – air quality. Air pollution is unfortunately also a fact! Air quality testing and the measurement and monitoring of background atmospheric pollution are important scientific tasks. The third section of the text briefly deals with the work conducted in this field in Hungary and the results achieved in 1996.
Background Pollution Values
Atmospheric Gases
Precipitation
Hungary’s Weather in 1996
Unseasonable Weather in Hungary
Weather Records in Hungary
Heavy Rains, Snowfall and Showers
From the Chronicles
Hail
Heavy Snows
Floods
Wind and Tornadoes
Years of Drought
From the Chronicles
Variation in Groundwater Levels
The Unseasonable Snows of Early November 1995
Unusual events in 1996
Natural Thermometers
Natural Clocks
