DROUGHT AND CANICULA IN THE AGRICULTURAL YEAR 2011-2012 IN THE SOUTH-WEST OF ROMANIA

Drought and Canicula in the Agricultural Year 2011-2012 in the South-West of Romania. The atypical weather during 2011 has also continued in 2012 (Marinică 2006, Bogdan, Marinică 2007, Marinică & all, 2011). Consequently, the winter of 2011, in Oltenia had two distinct parts: a first warmish and droughty part, and a second cold part, marked by drought too. In November, the weather was colder than usual. This was the first excessively droughty autumn of the last 13 autumns in Oltenia. During the winter of 2011-2012, although most of it was warm, there were registered 20 days of excessive frost and abundant snowfalls (25 January 2012-15 February 2012). In April 2012 the drought continued. The excessively warmish weather returned in summer, associated with an intense drought. On the whole the agricultural year 2011-2012 was an excessively droughty year (ED), and the excessive drought was mainly registered in two essential periods: in autumn and during the whole summer, namely in the periods in which there is a maximum need of water. The paper analyses in detail the characteristics of this agricultural year and the consequences on crops