If you are traveling to Dalmatia, it’s important to understand the wind. Many Dalmatians believe the winds affect mood, health, food production and may even motivate you to commit a crime. The two winds to know in Dalmatia are Bura and Jugo, which represent the northern and southern winds respectively.
The Bura Wind
In Croatia, the wind Bura is another word for fierce, just like Boreas character from the Greek mythology. Boreas was the God of winter and the north wind. He fell in love with the Athenian princess Orithyia. Unhappy that his charms got him nowhere, Boreas became angry, kidnapped Orithyia and made her to be his wife. A real charmer, that Boreas.
The Fierce Force
Even today, the Bura Wind (also known as Bora) can be violent, sometimes bringing gale force that closes the highways, keeps sailors and ferries at harbor, rips trees from their soil and blows tiles from rooftops. It is a wind that can reach a speed of up to 220 km/h (136 miles per hour).
Bura comes from the north, catapulting over the Mt. Velebit out to the Adriatic sea. It’s a dry cool wind, which is why it can be freezing on a sunny cloudless day. If the sun is out and you’re freezing to death, that’s bura. It’s most common in winter, but can happen at any time of the year.
There are two types of Bura, light and dark. ‘Light Bura’, is more typical and it’s accompanied with the clear skies. Then every so often there is a ‘dark bura’, which, go figure is characterized by dark clouds gathering on the hilltops, moving towards the sea and bringing rain.
Photo 1: Sunset view from Royal Hotels & Resort in Dubrovnik
Cleaning the Skies, Clearing the Mind
In Dalmatia, the sky cloggs with a haze thus making the islands barely visible. Bura comes in and wipes the sky clean. The Bura wind is known for not only ‘cleaning’ out the skies, but in the aftermath of the storm, people feel better, physically and emotionally, almost as if their heads had got cleared too.
March Bura – It is said that if Bura blows three times in March, then summer will be hot and stable.
The Jugo Wind
Jugo is a moist wind, typically accompanied by dark clouds and rain-filled storms. It blows from the south, coming over the islands and onto the shore.
