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The purpose of this article is to present the development of multifaceted research on snow cover conducted by Polish researchers in various parts of the world since the end of the 19th century up to the modern times. The paper describes Polish studies on physical and chemical properties of snow cover, its long-term changes, relationships between snow cover and climate, impact of snow cover on environmental conditions and human activity. This work is also an attempt to show the contribution of Polish snow-related research to the international achievements in this fields.

In this paper, the definitions of strong and very strong thermal waves have been introduced. The deviations of mean daily temperature from the long-term average of the air temperature by 2 and 3 standard deviations for three consecutive days were applied as criteria for thermal waves. The study was conducted for Lublin (1952-2010). In the analyzed period there were 54 strong cold waves and 24 strong warm waves. Strong cold waves often appeared in the first half of the analyzed period. An increase in the incidence of strong warm waves was noted in the XXI century. The criteria for a very strong warm wave were met by 4 cold waves and 1 warm wave. Strong cold waves occurred from 16 September to 7 June, and the strong warm waves - from 17 March to 17 November. Additionally, we analyzed the course of air temperature during a particularly hot summer in 2015 when 4 severe warm waves occurred. A very strong warm wave did not occur during that summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One way to determine in a comprehensive manner the impact of selected weather factors on the human body is biothermal-meteorological classification of weather. In this paper the typology by K. Błażejczyk was used. On the basis of this typology there were 169 different states of weather separated occurring in the years 1976-2010 on IMGW synoptic station in Lublin-Radawiec. In this period the type which occurred with the highest frequency was cold weather. That frequency reached on average 33% during the year, with maximum in November and February (over 45% of days). The type comfortable weather occurred in 11% of days during the year, with maximum during autumn (October, 23%) and spring (April, 22%). Very hot weather, with highest values of thermal sensations has occurred with frequency of 23% in the analyzed years. It was noted since May to September, mainly in July and August. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]