Tornadoes in Romania—from Forecasting and Warning to Understanding Public’s Response and Expectations

Simona Andrei,Bogdan Antonescu,Mihăiţă Huştiu,Sorin Cheval,Meda Daniela Andrei

doi:10.3390/atmos11090966

Abstract

Significant progress in tornado research and management can be claimed over the last few decades worldwide. However, tornado forecasting and warning continue to be permanent challenges for most European national meteorological services because they require particular skills and experience. Moreover, tornado warnings may generate panic. Therefore, one can remark that the main difficulties are related to (1) forecasting the tornado genesis, and (2) finding the most efficient way to communicate to the general public the possibility of tornado occurrence. This article presents the main characteristics of two convective events that occurred in Romania in order to emphasize the similarities and disparities between the tornado event (30 April 2019) and the non-tornado event (6 May 2019), from the warning perspective. Further, we investigate, for the first time in Romania, the general public’s comprehension, risk perception and reactions regarding the tornado events. The survey performed in 2020 emphasized that the Romanian public is able to recognize tornadoes (60%), understand the risks (over 80%), can manage the panic (over 70%), and is rather desirous to receive clear (over 90%) and real-time (95%) tornado warnings. The lessons learned may support the further development of tornado forecasting and warning procedures, and foster the public’s awareness related to tornado events.

Highlights

Tornadoes are one of the most violent meteorological phenomena, responsible for significant damages with impacts on many aspects of society, public health and the economy [1]
This paper has examined several challenges related to tornado forecast and warning procedures, as well as the public’s understanding, response and expectations related to tornado forecasting in as well as the public’s understanding, response and expectations related to tornado forecasting in Romania
The analysis was performed one year after the occurrence of two severe convective events in in the south-eastern part of the country, one being a tornado event on 30 April 2019, and one being a the south-eastern part of the country, one being a tornado event on 30 April 2019, and one being a non-tornado event on 6 May 2019

Summary

Introduction

Tornadoes are one of the most violent meteorological phenomena, responsible for significant damages with impacts on many aspects of society, public health and the economy [1]. Starting from two recent convective events that occurred in the southern part of Romania during the springtime of 2019, the present work focuses on the analysis of the warning process as it is nowadays, and the public’s perception with regards to tornado phenomena in Romania. The aim of this paper is to analyze the public’s possible reactions and risk-related perception of severe weather conditions, with focus on tornado events, and, based on this analysis, to provide a recommendation to include tornadoes amongst the severe phenomena for which warnings should be issued in Romania. To our knowledge, this is the first time the Romanian general public has been asked to participate in a national level survey with tornadoes as the main topic. The main conclusions and future work to improve the tornado warning process chain in Romania are presented

General Characteristics of Two Convective Events Occurred in Romania in 2019

Updated Climatology of Tornadoes in Romania

Romania

The distribution of of results questionsQ2

Findings

Conclusions