Snow loads are often the heaviest load to which roofs are exposed, and Melita Percec Tadic, a climatologist who has been charting maps with data on roof snow loads for Croatia, warns about this issue.
For instance, the snow load on the roof of a house in Croatia's mountainous regions can weigh up to 80 tonnes.
The climate atlas of Croatia offers data about snow coverage across the country calculated on the basis of analyses in the 1961-1990 period.
The height of snow layers recorded in the 1961-1990 period ranged from a maximum five centimetres on the island of Hvar or 8 centimetres in Dubrovnik to 52 centimetres in the seaport of Rijeka, 56 centimetres in the capital of Zagreb, or maximum 57 centimetres in the eastern city of Osijek.
However, on 15 February 2013, the snowfall made the snow layer in the capital a record 67 centimetres high.
In the period from 1961 to 1990 the average annual duration of snow layers was 35.2 days in Zagreb, 48.6 days in Varazdin and 35.2 days in Osijek.
The highest snow layers, the longest periods of snow coverage and the lowest temperatures are registered in the mountainous regions of Lika and Gorski Kotar. The town of Gospic is covered in snow 68.8 days a year on average, and the maximum height of the snow cover is 117 centimetres.
Zavizan, the oldest high-altitude weather station in Croatia, located at 1,594 m above the sea level on the northern slopes of Mount Velebit, has snow layers of over 50 centimetres for nearly four months a year. It is covered in snow 174.3 days a year.
Freezing temperatures, snowfalls and inclement weather conditions have recently caused troubles in road transport as well as power outages in mountainous areas.
Snowfalls recently hit the southern parts of the country, such as the Dubrovnik hinterland and the island of Korcula, which is unusual for those areas.