As Morski/Daina Dabelic writes on the 13th of November, 2019, hurricane-like storms and a fierce jugo wind that has been giving the Dalmatian coast an intense beating over the last few days has unfortunately knocked down a large number of trees in Mljet National Park.

The nature conservation services of NP Mljet, the Montokuc DVD and the Mljet JVP (fire departments) were engaged in trying to keep on top of and clear the devastated trees yesterday and that action has continued on into today in order to attempt to keep roads and promenades open and clear, especially in case of emergencies, the likelihood of which is of course heightened in these adverse conditions.

''Our services will have a lot of work to do in the coming days as well, given the number of trees that have been taken down, while only the trees which have fallen on the most essential areas are currently being removed.

Stormy jugo winds have also dragged in large amounts of waste from the seashore, which will all need to be rehabilitated over the coming months. The damage to the coastal walls and docks will be assessed after the withdrawal of the sea, as will the ecological dam in the Soline channel, which protects Mljet's lakes from the pollution of waste being dragged in from out at sea.

Major damage to the vessels which belong to this Mljet-based institution and the island's inhabitants has been prevented by great efforts and the 24-hour on-call duty shift from Mljet's park ranger and the technical service.

''We're afraid that such storms, and as such necessary interventions like these will become more and more frequent as a consequence of climate change that we're now experiencing, and each of us should think about how we can help to try to ensure a better tomorrow together,'' they say from the beloved Mljet National Park.

Watch the video of the intense storms here:

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Dubrovnik is a place in Croatia that so many associate with gorgeous weather, calm seas and an enviable climate. While this is true during the warm (alright, agonisingly hot) summer months, autumn and the winter can bring with them some incredible weather, and the southeastern jugo wind, with all of its power, is just one of them.

As Morski writes on the 13th of November, 2019, owing to its location at the extreme southern tip of the country, the City of Dubrovnik has always been on the radar of some of the more violent jugo winds, or šilok, as the people of Dubrovnik sometimes call it.

They didn't construct such mighty walls for no reason, and while these giant structures were built from the 13th to the 17th centuries for defense purposes, as Dubrovnik was always under the watchful eye of the jealous Venetians, the walls also protected the city's inhabitants from the gigantic waves jugo winds often churn up and produce. For the sake of ease of reference when it comes to the size of these waves, they are 1,940 metres long, up to 25 metres high, 4-6 m thick when near the mainland, and up to 3 metres thick towards the sea.

The old people of Dubrovnik had a stipulation that they never convened and made any important decisions when jugo, or perhaps better to call it šilok when speaking about Dubrovnik, was blowing. People believed the adverse weather affected people mentally, and therefore they couldn't come to a rounded official decision on something when influenced by these mighty winds.

Two storm chasers and photographers from Dubrovnik, Boris Bašić and Daniel Pavlinović, took some utterly spectacular photos of the waves that literally spilled over the ancient city walls. dramatic waterspouts (pijavice) were recorded, and Bašić filmed the usually peaceful rocks (grebeni) located just in front of Lapad, through and over which strong waves in a sea churned up by jugo violently swept.

You haven't truly experienced jugo (šilok) until you have experienced it in Dubrovnik, if you'd like to see why, watch the video below:

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Croatia is one of those countries that many people seem to think is just the coast, and that that coastline is constantly calm, boiling hot, and boasts an always gentle Adriatic sea. People can be forgiven for that thought, and the same is true for many Mediterranean countries that rely heavily on tourism. Think Spain, Turkey and Greece - countries where everyone seems to make the mistake of thinking they're the lands of constant sunshine.

Croatia, for all of the gorgeous weather and seemingly endless hours of sunshine it does boast, is much more than just the coast, and there is much more to the climate of this little country than the beating rays of a harsh, dry sun and the soft lapping of a warm Adriatic.

Bura and jugo are two words that even the most clueless of foreigners will be quick to learn if they spend any time at all along the Dalmatian coast outside of summer. These winds are powerful, indiscriminate and often cause all sorts of material damage. These winds prevent even the most experienced of salty sea dogs and professional sailors from even daring to venture out to sea, and they turn the sparkling blue, usually flat Adriatic into what could be a sight from the middle of a grey, stormy Atlantic ocean within a very short period of time.

Interested to learn more about the winds that batter the Croatian coast? Click here for all you need to know about jugo, a beastly and unforgiving southeastern wind.

The winds affect the sea, and the waves that the Adriatic can produce are quite unexpected indeed. As Morski writes on the 13th of November, 2019, the record for the highest wave on the Croatian Adriatic has now been broken.

The Croatian Hydrographic Institute measured the new, record breaking wave on November the 12th, 2019 at 16:00.

This wave was recorded in the sea near Dubrovnik near the islet of Sv. Andrija. The maximum height of that wave was Hmax = 10.87 metres.

Although lighthouse keepers recorded the passage of a large wave over the top of an eleven-metre-long crane in the late 1980s, this is the first official confirmation that the highest waves on the Adriatic are recorded on this Elaphite island, which lies seven nautical miles west of Dubrovnik.

Officially, the highest Adriatic wave of 10.8 metres in height was measured in February back in 1986. That wave also occurred during an ''attack'' by stormy jugo winds.

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