Abstract. - 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.
Key words: drought, canicular heat, frost, thermal and hydric stress.