Croatia lashed with 200km/h 'bora' wind as spring begins

Many Aussies will be relieved our"endless summer" seems to have finally burned itself out, but spare a thought for our Balkan cousins, whose spring begins with an almighty bluster called the "bora".

Every year around this time the infamous wind (also known as the "bura") blows – and how. Capable of flipping trucks, totalling houses and grounding cargo ships, the recurring hurricane-force wind was clocked hitting speeds up around 200km/h last year.

This year the first bora of the season screamed through Croatia's Velebit mountain range, where the wind is at its most ferocious, at a sharp 167km/h.

There are, as these videos show, plenty of storm chasers prepared to brave the bitingly cold wind, which is powerful enough to blow a person clean off their feet. Of course, that's not enough to deter some from standing on places like the Pag Bridge, or high up in the coastal Bojinac region, famed for its picturesque rocky terrain.

But there is, of course, a trade-off for feeling as if your cheeks are being blasted off with a gurney: the countryside, under a crystalline sky, is breathtakingly beautiful.

According to the locals, there are meant to be three bora events during March, with a 10-day period of respite between each. If all three "blow out their rage", according to Total Croatia News, then the nation can look forward to a fine hot summer.