[Ian Williams]

Becoming less cold across Europe and now it seems only the furthest eastern Capitals are frigid. A real pain in finding the highest max temp in Europe yesterday, AEMET says Vigo Airport hit 20.1C - but i am sure that is incorrect, their highest hourly max was 14.2C - and looking at Ogimet the max temp for Vigo using the synop codes gives 33.1C!!! Ogimet also gives Jerez De La Frontera a max of 18.0C however AEMET says 17.6C. So all in all i went for Portugals Aljezur with 17.8C

Snow wise across this list of Capitals only one place added snow and that was a couple of centimetres @ Budapest, Hungary. Look at Edinburgh 3rd warmest capital in Europe - not withstanding Dave`s remaining list of the capitals.




Prievidza
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Coordinates: 48°46′16″N 18°37′18″E

Prievidza
City
Trinity monument in Prievidza
Coat of arms
Country	Slovakia
Region	Trenčín
District	Prievidza
Tourism region	Horná Nitra
River	Nitra
Elevation	280 m (919 ft)
Coordinates	48°46′16″N 18°37′18″E
Area	43.063 km2 (16.627 sq mi)
Population	51,201 (2006-12-31)
Density	1,189 / km2 (3,079 / sq mi)
First mentioned	1113
Mayor	Katarína Macháčková
Timezone	CET (UTC+1)
- summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Postal code	971 01
Area code	+421-46
Car plate	PD
Location in Slovakia
Location in the Trenčín Region
Wikimedia Commons: Prievidza
Statistics: MOŠ/MIS
Website: www.prievidza.sk

Prievidza ( pronunciation (help·info); Hungarian: Privigye, German: Priwitz) is a city in the central-western Slovakia. With 51,200 inhabitants it is one of the biggest municipalities in the Trenčín Region.

Contents [show]

[edit] Features
Prievidza is a centre for many institutions of regional importance - governmental as well as commercial. It is commonly called the "green city". The most prominent sporting clubs include the BC Prievidza (basketball; last champion of Czechoslovakia before separation and later champion of Slovakia); of certain notoriety are also Prievidza Football Club and the ice hockey Club, both of which compete in the appropriate second national leagues.

Prievidza has 6 boroughs: Staré mesto (Old Town in English), Píly, Necpaly, Kopanice, Zápotôčky and Žabník and there are three adjoining villages that are an administrative part of Prievidza: Hradec, Malá Lehôtka and Veľká Lehôtka.


[edit] History
The city was first mentioned in 1113 as Preuigan. It was promoted to a royal free town in 1383. Since the 16th century, craftsmanship was developing in Prievidza. From the 16th to the first third of the 17th century, the Thurzo family controlled the town. Ottomans approached Prievidza from the south and burned it in 1599, along with other towns in the upper Nitra river valley. During the Kuruc uprising in 1673, Prievidza was burned down again, with fire burning a part of town's archives. In 1870, it had 2,719 inhabitants. Since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, industry started to grow, as the railways to Prievidza were constructed. During the World War II, the city was one of the centres of partisans. Since the end of war, the population grew enormously from 5,000 inhabitants to around 53,000 inhabitants, as the industry grew. Prievidza became the home of many miners and workers that found employment in the coal mines, the power station and the chemical factory in the nearby town of Nováky.


[edit] Geography
Prievidza lies at an altitude of 280 metres (919 ft) above sea level and covers an area of 43.06 square kilometres (16.6 sq mi).^[1] The city is situated very near the smaller but more famous town of Bojnice, actually sharing the public transport system. The valley of the Nitra River, in which the city lies, is surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides, in the west Strážov Mountains, in the north Malá Fatra, in the east Žiar and in the south Vtáčnik. Prievidza is the eleventh largest city in Slovakia. It is located around 60 kilometres (37 mi) south of Žilina, 69 kilometres (43 mi) km east of the regional capital Trenčín and 158 kilometres (98 mi) km from Bratislava (by road).


[edit] Climate
Prievidza lies in the north temperate zone and has a continental climate with four distinct seasons. It is characterized by a significant variation between hot summers and cold, snowy winters.

[hide]Climate data for Prievidza
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °C (°F)	2 (35)	5 (41)	9 (49)	16 (60)	22 (71)	24 (76)	26 (78)	26 (80)	20 (69)	15 (59)	8 (47)	2 (36)	14.6 (58.4)
Average low °C (°F)	−4 (24)	−4 (25)	0 (31)	4 (40)	9 (48)	12 (53)	13 (56)	13 (56)	9 (49)	6 (41)	2 (35)	−3 (26)	4.8 (40.3)
Precipitation cm (inches)	4.05 (1.59)	4.28 (1.69)	3.72 (1.46)	4.62 (1.82)	5.50 (2.17)	8.46 (3.33)	7.98 (3.14)	7.63 (3.00)	6.34 (2.50)	4.98 (1.96)	5.02 (1.98)	3.62 (1.43)	66.2 (26.07)
Source: MSN Weather[2]

[edit] Demographics
The oldest church in Prievidza, built in 1260 According to the 2001 census, the town had 53,097 inhabitants. 96.65% of inhabitants were Slovaks, 0.95% Czechs, 0.48% Hungarian and 0.29% Roma and Germans.^[1] The religious make-up was 61.91% Roman Catholics, 29.01% people with no religious affiliation and 2.29% Lutherans.^[1]




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[Dave K]

Certainly rather less cold generally with nowhere (on my list) below -20 °C for a change, but the incursion of milder and more moist air battling against the cold means that a few places experienced new snowfall, the most at Helsinki.

This post has been edited by Big Dave's Gusset: 16 February 2012 - 16:09

[Ian Williams]

This is the 30th day that Lisbon has seen no rainfall - the last time it rained was on the 15th January and over the last 50 days Lisbon Geofisico station has only recorded 15.2 mm and a similar story for Lisbons Gago Coutinho station here with even less rain over the last 50 days just 10.7 mm

Producers are desperate by the fruit's size as it's refused by supermarkets
Portugal: Drought affects Algarve oranges

The lack of rain in the Algarve is producing smaller oranges, which are refused by the market, this is causing a strong drop in turnover for farmers and could lead to bankruptcy, a sector representative said.

"The fact that it hasn't rained has an effect on an orange's size, which why they are growing less than in the previous year", said Horácio Ferreira, general-director for the Agricultural Cooperative of Citrus producers in Algarve, to the news agency LUSA.

The problem, he says, is not the size of the yield, which is actually higher than usual, but the small size of much of the harvest. The consumers demand larger fruits, so the retailers do likewise. Generally they are looking for diameters over 73mm.

"Rain produces bigger fruits, of identical quality, as water from above has different micro elements and as it falls from above it makes the tree wet, drops on the ground and fertilizes the soil", he explained.

Without rain farmers will turn to drop irrigation techniques, bringing less water to the fruit.

Big distribution chains reject small sized fruits, that must be sold at a lower price to less demanding markets or, in the majority of cases, for the juice industry.



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This post has been edited by Ian Williams: 16 February 2012 - 19:17