Hungarian icing activity survey

The paper summarizes the long term research and development efforts conducted in Hungary to provide reliable ice loading design data base of electricity transmission lines. After overviewing the country's climatic situation and the major synoptic conditions of rime formation, the author describes the main features of the long term national observation program. To remove uncertainity associated with quantifying the actual ice loads of overhead electricity lines, recently a comprehensive research program was carried out to improve the ice measuring methods and devices and to establish calibration methods between the ice accretion on the actual transmission line and that on the measuring device. The practical impact of the more consistent design data base is discussed.