Fireworks will be cancelled again in Budapest? Here is the forecast

The fireworks on 20 August, the Hungarian national holiday, were cancelled due to a high chance of rain and storm. The evening could have ended very badly had storms interfered. The fireworks were postponed to the next Saturday, 27 August – today. What do forecasts say about today’s weather? Read our article to find out!

Weather forecast for Saturday

Clouds are gathering around the fireworks: the National Meteorological Service (OMSZ) is forecasting thunderstorms for Saturday again. The meteorological service has issued a first level warning for Pest county for Saturday, reports szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu.

As they write, during the day, mainly in the Transdanubian region, there will be a greater chance of scattered showers, but in the central part of the country and in the southern part of the Danube-Tisza basin, there is also a small chance of such precipitation. Strong or gusty winds may occur around thunderstorms. The OMSZ has therefore issued a first level warning for Saturday for several counties due to thunderstorms.

Previous events – the firing of weather officials

As we reported before, the head and the vice-head of the OMSZ was fired because of “wrong forecasting”. László Palkovics, minister of technology and innovation, decided to fire the top officials, chairwoman Kornélia Radics and vice-chair Gyula Horváth because the OMSZ said there would be thunderstorms on 20 August. Therefore, the government postponed the fireworks, but the rain did not arrive.

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András Bencsik, editor-in-chief of Hungarian news portal Demokrata, said that “in his opinion, this was a hasty decision”. According to him, “we should get out of this nonsense” of trying to support a hasty decision with some theory afterwards. He said that had PM Viktor Orbán been home at the time of the decision, this would not have happened. We have also written about Orbán’s vacation abroad, in Croatia.