Bulgaria’s April 2025 was much colder than April 2024, irreparably damaging some crops
Bulgaria’s April 2025 was much colder than April 2024 but slightly warmer than same month in 2023, with the weather in the month this year irreparably damaging some crops, according to a report published by the national meteorological bureau on May 2.
The average monthly temperatures were between plus 8 and plus 14 degrees Celsius, deviating from the monthly norm between minus 2 and plus 1 degree, the report said.
The highest measured temperature was 29.3 degrees on April 17 in the village of Purvomay, Blagoevgrad district.
The lowest minimum temperature at a weather station in a settlement was minus 10.5 degrees on April 9 in the town of Chepelare, Smolyan region, and the lowest temperature measured on a mountain peak was minus 17.6 degrees on Mount Musala on April 7–8.
In Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, the highest measured temperature was 24.6 degrees on April 21, and the lowest, minus 4.1 degrees on April 9.
In most of Bulgaria, the monthly amounts of precipitation were around the climatic norm, by between 50 and 150 per cent.
April 2025 saw less precipitation on average for the country than the months of April since 2021.
On April 10, heavy snowfall and strong winds caused serious problems in the power supply and road infrastructure in the districts of Silistra, Rousse, Shoumen, Turgovishte, Dobrich and Varna, the report said.
In some places, the snow cover reached 7cm. In the evening of the same day, a hurricane wind in Pomorie knocked down a construction crane in the area of the fishing port, damaging boats, part of a fence and a pontoon, it said.
During most of April, the water levels of most rivers in Bulgaria were around and above the average water levels. Significant increases as a result of precipitation were recorded in the first and last 10 days of the month.
The cold weather at the end of the first and beginning of the second decade of April, with negative minimum temperatures and snowfall, causes irreparable damage to fruit trees and rapeseed crops that have entered the flowering phase, the report said.
In the Sofia and Kyustendil fields and in many places in Eastern Bulgaria, damage to stone fruit species (apricot, cherry, plum) reaches 80–90 per cent.
In Northern Bulgaria – the agrostations Nikolaevo, Borima and Turgovishte, damage to walnut inflorescences was up to 90 per cent.
At the end of the month, conditions are created in the high fields and in many places in the eastern regions for the formation of frosts, which damage the younger shoots and late varieties of fruit trees, the report said.
(Photo: Teodora Vlaicu Stock.Xchng)
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