Fickle and
\nunpredictable, weather has this year managed to spoil the mini-holiday
\nRomanians had over Easter and May 1st, the International Labour Day.
\nOn Tuesday, the south of the country, Bucharest included, was affected by
\nstorms and heavy rain. According to a report drawn up by the General
\nInspectorate for Emergency Situations, more than one thousand firefighters had
\nto be deployed in order to help local authorities and the population. They
\nhelped drain the water from the basements of several houses and public
\ninstitutions and removed the trees and utility poles felled down by wind. In
\nCalarasi County, a medium-size tornado forced a bus off the road and overturned
\nit in a nearby field, leaving 12 people injured. The tornado, the second ever
\nreported in Romania after the one in 2002, has also damaged dozens of houses. Central
\nauthorities have therefore decided that the RO-ALERT warning system should also
\nbe used to send warnings concerning severe weather. The measure was adopted by
\nthe Emergency Department of the Interior Ministry and the National Meteorological
\nAdministration. The head of the department, Raed Arafat, has stated that the
\nlegislation regulating the functioning of the RO-ALERT system has not been
\ncompleted yet, but the system will issue new types of warning, by means of a
\nprocedure that will be finalized until Monday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Together
\nwith our colleagues from the National Meteorological Administration we have
\nestablished certain situations, such as squalls turning into storms, which is a
\ncode red warning case, or code orange phenomena which can turn into code red
\nsituations and have a major impact. Also, people can be warned about hail
\nstorms and other extreme events that weather experts say are dangerous by means
\nof a warning issued through the RO-ALERT system in the affected area. We also
\ntalked about taking into account the 112 calls from areas under such codes, where
\nunpredictable situations occur, so the RO-ALERT system can be activated in
\nthose places too.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
For the
\ninformation to be submitted promptly, a direct line will be set up between the
\nGeneral Inspectorate for Emergency situations and the National Weather Forecast
\nCentre, as Elena Mateescu, the director of the National Meteorological
\nAdministration explains:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Legislation
\nmust now be adapted in order for the National Meteorological Administration to
\nobserve certain procedures and regulations in force. By Monday we will have
\nestablished the type of weather events to be covered by the RO-ALERT warning
\nsystem, the thresholds that have an imminent potential of turning into
\ndangerous situations in the respective areas.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Specialists have
\nwarned that the RO-ALERT system is merely a warning system and it does not work
\nlike a ‘weather radar’ that identifies by itself weather phenomena or other
\ndangerous situations. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bucharest authorities have decided to extend the Ro-Alert warning system so as to cover severe weather phenomena<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":81632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[34718,39656,30518,39655,31934],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-81631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-extreme-weather-phenomena","tag-national-meteorological-administration","tag-raed-arafat","tag-ro-alert","tag-warning-system"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n