Climatological study of freezing rain in Belgrade from 1949 to 2022

Abstract This study examines the climatology of freezing rain events in Belgrade, Serbia, from 1949 to 2022. The analysis shows that most of these events occur in the winter months (January, February and December), with some also occurring in the transition months of March, October and November. It is noteworthy that freezing rain in Belgrade is usually of short duration: 62% of the events lasted less than two hours. Only 1.6% of all freezing rain events lasted 10 h or longer. They usually start between midnight and 07 local time, when air temperatures are at their lowest. In addition, about 60% of freezing rain events show a characteristic vertical temperature profile, with a “warm nose” aloft and a temperature inversion in the cold surface layer. Our climatological study shows that the annual number of days with freezing rain has decreased over time as a result of global warming. It can be stated that freezing rain often occurs in identical situations when the local Košava wind, a type of topographically channeled wind, a low-level gap wind, blows when the isobars over Serbia are almost meridional, during the southerly to southeasterly flow and strong pressure gradients between the anticyclone in the east and the blocked cyclones in the western Mediterranean.