Meteorological bureau: Bulgaria’s August 2025 was ‘least warm’ August in past five years

Sofia: Bulgaria’s August 2025 was the country’s least warm month of August for the past five years, the national meteorological bureau said in a regular monthly report.

The average monthly temperatures were between 19 and 26 degrees Celsius, deviating from the monthly norm by between minus one and plus two degrees, the meteorological bureau said.

The highest measured temperature was 40.6 degrees on August 11 in the town of Lom, Montana region.

The lowest minimum temperature at a weather station in a settlement was 2.2 degrees on August 27 in the town of Chepelare, Smolyan district, and the lowest temperature measured on a mountain peak was minus 2.1 degrees on Musala peak on August 24.

In Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia, the highest measured temperature was 35.2 degrees on August 11, and the lowest, 6.6 degrees on August 26.

The amount of rain in Bulgaria in August 2025 was below the climatic norm, the bureau said.

August 2025 saw more rain than August 2024, but less than August 2023 and 2022.

The largest measured 24-hour amount of precipitation was 71mm of rain in the village of Gramatikovo, Bourgas district, on August 20.

In Sofia, the monthly amount of rain was 18mm, about a third of the norm, and the maximum 24-hour precipitation was 15mm of rain on August 5.

The meteorological bureau said that during the first and second 10-day periods of August, a heat wave was recorded in the country, lasting from 12 to 18 days in northern Bulgaria and up to 15 days in southern Bulgaria.

Numerous forest and field fires were registered during the first half of the month.

Dry terrain is particularly vulnerable to thunderstorms, and in August lightning caused several fires, the bureau’s report said.

On August 6, lightning set fire to stubble between the Kapcheto area in the Meden Rudnik residential area and the Gorno Ezerovo district in Bourgas; on August 18, lightning caused a fire near the Stara Zagora hydroelectric power station; on August 19, a lightning strike set fire to forest litter in the land of the village of Krilatitsa, Kurdzhali district.

On August 22, with the passage of a cold atmospheric front, storms with rain and hail and strong gusts of wind were registered in many places in the country. A state of emergency was declared in the village of Dzhuliunitsa, Veliko Turnovo district, where the storm felled trees, snapped wires and collapsed street sections. In Montana, strong winds knocked down trees on to cars.

In August, the water levels of the country’s rivers were below the average water levels and around the low water levels.

As a result of precipitation, short-term increases in river levels were recorded at individual hydrometric points, more significant in the period August 4-6 (up to 89 cm on the Iskar River near the town of Novi Iskar).

During the month, the Fakiyska River in the area of ​​the village of Zidarovo and the Ropotamo River in the area of​​the village of Veselie dried up.

The deepening summer drought and prolonged periods of extremely high temperatures compromised the corn and sunflower harvest in many places in Bulgaria, the report said.

In some agricultural regions, sunflower yields were unusually low – below 100 kg/0.l hectares.

Because of the unfavourable agrometeorological conditions, a significant part of the corn crops grown under non-irrigated conditions will not be harvested, the meteorological bureau said.

The rain at the end of the second and in the first half of the third 10-day period of August was unevenly distributed and too late for the late agricultural crops grown under non-irrigated conditions.