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Old 07-25-2016, 10:00 AM
 
Location: Serres, Greece
2,257 posts, read 1,984,546 times
Reputation: 637

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I want rain... I missed rain... I want cool weather! It is too hot.

 
Old 07-25-2016, 10:23 AM
 
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
3,990 posts, read 3,390,513 times
Reputation: 1004
^^ So do I. Some models were forecasting up to 40 mm of rain for yesterday and today for Zagreb but we wound up with nothing at all, while some places in Slavonia got flooded with >50 mm of rain in 3 hours.

There is a bit more chance for rain until Thursday, so I'm hoping to get at least 10 mm as the ground is very dry and dusty.
 
Old 07-25-2016, 10:43 AM
 
Location: Serres, Greece
2,257 posts, read 1,984,546 times
Reputation: 637
Quote:
Originally Posted by ksolina View Post
^^ So do I. Some models were forecasting up to 40 mm of rain for yesterday and today for Zagreb but we wound up with nothing at all, while some places in Slavonia got flooded with >50 mm of rain in 3 hours.

There is a bit more chance for rain until Thursday, so I'm hoping to get at least 10 mm as the ground is very dry and dusty.
This summer is awful. I loved early June here. We had almost everyday thunderstorms and nice temperatures. Croatia without thunderstorms? Wow!
 
Old 07-25-2016, 11:27 AM
 
Location: near Turin (Italy)
1,373 posts, read 1,437,310 times
Reputation: 2223
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
It's reforestation I think. From abandoning land marginal for agriculture; think a few European posters (Urania, alphatier?) mentioned it
In Italy there was a recent study about this, I found several articles about it. I would just like to translate some paragraphs, because they look quite interesting

First article

Quote:
In Italy there are more and more woods and forests, and they are growing year by year: Italians have reached the record number of 200 trees per person. This is in absolute the period with the highest number of trees in Italian history, at least in the last 1000 years.

[...]

According to a study of 2015, today the woods have a growing rate of 0.6% per year.

[...]

In the last ten years (2005-2015) 600k hectares have passed from the human exploitation to the free state. Now those areas have become woods with wild animals.

[...]

Why is the forest growing? An important factor is the introduction of mechanic agriculture techniques, that freed many peasants from their dependence on land cultivation. This allowed a large part of then to change occupation, and transformed the ones who continued with their ancestors work into farmers able to obtain much larger harvesting with much less land and workers.

Nowadays agriculture produces much more than some decades ago, and it is concentrated in the flat areas and on the hill bases. The hills and the mountains have been abandoned instead, allowing the growing of woods in these areas.

The period with the most intense deforestation was the late Middle ages (1200-1300), when the population increased before the great plague. This large population(*) was obliged to cultivate all the reachable land, and so really large forests were cut.

(*) I found that the Italian population could have reached 12.5 million of people in that period, but it is really difficult to find decent data about this because our country was extremely fragmented in that period.
Second Article

Quote:
The forests cover 1/3 of our territory and they are still growing. Woods have taken the place of fields and pasture lands. And it is becoming more and more impenetrable, indefensible from fires.

In Italy, year by year, the forests are advancing incessantly. The wood surface in our country has reached 10.9 million of hectares. It is the 5.8% more than in 2005. In 30 years the woods have conquered more than 30 millions of hectares. And now they cover 1/3 of our peninsula.

[...]

The woods growth is a good new? Actually, it is not. Because it is the result of abandon, and not of policies aimed to this purpose. In the study it can be read that, in average, only 1700 hectares per year are due to reforestation.
The woods are covering grasslands on the mountains in which cows no more graze and fields left uncultivated for decades. The "malghe" have practically disappeared. The terraced fields used by the mountain farmers for using every square meter of their land underwent the same destiny.
(*an example of terraced fied*)

[...]

Recent history of Italian forests is strongly related to the abandonment of rural areas. It is an history that more or less starts in the 50s and with an unpredictable ending. Because this is an ecological evolution unseen in the history of the country after year 1000.

[...]

It is estimated that in the 30s there were 4 millions of hectares of woods in Italy, now they are 11. This was partially due to the intensive exploitation of the woods and to the environmental devastation of WWI. Similar situation until the end of WWII, when the first (and only) laws for reforestation were promulgated.

Anyway, it is not only a matter of quantity, but also of quality of the woods.
"In the last decades the density of the woods increased too. This means less space between the trees and a undergrowth that, more and more often, has become impenetrable.

"For understanding what happened we have also to remember that, at the beginning of the 60s, the 50% of Italian kitchens used wood fires. Gas reached all the houses only at the beginning of the 70s." Wood was for millenniums a fundamental raw material and the only energy source, for cooking and heating the houses. "That's why it was nearly impossible to find a tree branch on the ground. Forests were cultivated, supervised and controlled. This was so evident that Victor Hugo and other great travelers of 1800 century compared the woods to gardens. " Today to talk about woods supervision is unpopular, but an uncontrollable forest growth damages the forest itself.

"An impenetrable wood is nearly indefensible from fire or parasites.

[...]

Each year in Italy only the 30% of the new wood surface is cut. This means that every year, for 100 new trees, only 30 are cut. In the rest of Europe the 60% of new biomass is cut instead, and in some countries (such as Austria) it is more than 90%.

In addition Italy imports the 80% of the wood from foreign countries. [A long parenthesis in which they say that we would need wood and biomass for producing furniture ] Wood is mostly imported from France, Slovenia, Austria, Croatia and Switzerland.
Italian woods are a potential source for economic growth, and they are unused. Even if we cut the double of trees than now, our woods would still grow.

In this situation it seems incredible that concrete is growing too. In 2013 a record in soil consumption in Italy was reached: +6.9% (in the 50s it was 2.7%). We are blocked between the concrete on one side and wind woods on the other. The ones who loses is the soil quality, pastoralism and agriculture.

About the importance of abandoning, in particular here in the mountains, I have to show you some pictures of the woods just above my village. In a place I know well, more or less 1000 m of altitude, is an old frazione in which the trees are literally growing in the ruins of the old houses.
 
Old 07-25-2016, 11:31 AM
 
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
3,990 posts, read 3,390,513 times
Reputation: 1004
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alkis View Post
Croatia without thunderstorms? Wow!
Nah, just Zagreb. We've had one decent thunderstorm in June and that's all. The rest of Croatia, especially western Slavonia and the northernmost part of Croatia, are doing pretty good.
 
Old 07-25-2016, 11:35 AM
 
Location: Bologna, Italy
7,501 posts, read 6,257,489 times
Reputation: 3761
Quote:
Originally Posted by ksolina View Post
^^ So do I. Some models were forecasting up to 40 mm of rain for yesterday and today for Zagreb but we wound up with nothing at all, while some places in Slavonia got flooded with >50 mm of rain in 3 hours.

There is a bit more chance for rain until Thursday, so I'm hoping to get at least 10 mm as the ground is very dry and dusty.
I went to Istria last week and it was cool and rainy for at least 3 days. Not great for beach weather...

Here it is hot and humid, I'm getting tired of 22c lows. No day with a high below 30c in sight.

Also, agree about the reforestation. Unfortunately where I live forests are long gone, everything looks like this once you step out of the city:

 
Old 07-25-2016, 12:03 PM
 
Location: Serres, Greece
2,257 posts, read 1,984,546 times
Reputation: 637
Quote:
Originally Posted by forgotten username View Post
I went to Istria last week and it was cool and rainy for at least 3 days. Not great for beach weather...

Here it is hot and humid, I'm getting tired of 22c lows. No day with a high below 30c in sight.

Also, agree about the reforestation. Unfortunately where I live forests are long gone, everything looks like this once you step out of the city:

22 C at the city centre? Here 22 is the low OUTSIDE of the city... I can't imagine what was our low yesterday night into the city. The low at the outskirts was 23,5 C.
 
Old 07-25-2016, 12:06 PM
 
Location: Portsmouth, UK
13,458 posts, read 8,997,736 times
Reputation: 3916
You want hot & humid with hot nights & no rain come to Malta My low was 26C last night & not seen a drop of rain for over a month...
 
Old 07-25-2016, 12:42 PM
 
Location: Serres, Greece
2,257 posts, read 1,984,546 times
Reputation: 637
Quote:
Originally Posted by flamingGalah! View Post
You want hot & humid with hot nights & no rain come to Malta My low was 26C last night & not seen a drop of rain for over a month...
 
Old 07-25-2016, 01:05 PM
 
Location: Bologna, Italy
7,501 posts, read 6,257,489 times
Reputation: 3761
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alkis View Post
22 C at the city centre? Here 22 is the low OUTSIDE of the city... I can't imagine what was our low yesterday night into the city. The low at the outskirts was 23,5 C.
not sure, the thermometer is at the airport which is not really downtown to say the least.

I should check out at my local park, which is usually more humid and slightly cooler than the airport station.
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