Summary: | Storms in the European part of the Mediterranean Sea Basin are characterized in the paper. Data on storm days comes from the years 1986-2008, from fourteen stations located on the coast and on islands of the Mediterranean Sea (Gibraltar, Valencia, Palma de Majorca, Marseille, Ajaccio – Corsica, Cagliari – Sardinia, Palermo – Sicily, Naples, Luqa – Malta, Thessaloniki, Athens, Souda – Crete, Rhodes Airport – Rhodes and Larnaca – Cyprus). The greatest number of storm days was noted in Corsica (870 - on the average 37,8 per year) and the least in Gibraltar (371 – 16,1). In most of the examined stations storms took place most frequently in the fall (from 19 to 46%). The smallest number of storm days was observed in winter (western and central part of the region) and in summer (eastern part). From a year-to-year analysis of storm days, it was found that their trend, at almost at all the stations, is negative. The strongest negative trend was observed in Valencia, Naples and Cagliari (-8,5 days/10 years). A growing trend, reaching 3 storm days/10 years, was only found in Cyprus.
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