Spatial distribution of heavy precipitation events in Romania between 1980 and 2009

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This study focuses on the spatial distribution of heavy precipitation events that occurred in Romania over 30 years, between 1 January 1980 and 31 December 2009. It is the first such study carried out for this country, using this particular data set and methodology, whereby a Relational Database Management System was used to store data on precipitation and to filter subsets of interest out of the main dataset. Increasing trends have been found in the time series of the maximum annual precipitation amounts recorded in 24 h, and in that of the annual number of events; an increasing trend, from one decade to another, was also found in the latter dataset. Peculiarities of spatial distributions over the three decades are highlighted, such as the virtual confinement of extreme precipitation events to areas outside of the Carpathian Mountains arch in Romania and on mountain sides oriented towards the outside of it.