After days when the mercury climbed to 37-39 degrees and the whole country was boiling, the turn is coming. Meteorologists warn of a dangerous change in the weather - a violent storm with rain, thunder and, in places, hail, most pronounced in the afternoon hours. From tropical heat to a storm in a few hours - summer as we know it.

A sudden turn like this isn't rare, but it's dangerous precisely because of the speed. The afternoon thunderstorms and hail arrive when temperatures are highest, when people are outdoors, at the beach, in the fields. The authorities advise caution and planning activities carefully - especially in the hours when the risk is greatest.

The problem isn't the storm itself - that's nature. The problem is that every summer we look equally unprepared. Hail that destroys crops, floods that fill basements, trees that fall on cars - all of it repeats, while the infrastructure and the habits stay the same. How many more summer storms do we need to realize this isn't the exception, but the new normal?

For farmers the turn is especially painful - a single hailstorm can wipe out a whole season's work in minutes. For citizens, advice worth more than any forecast: when the sky darkens in the afternoon, don't seek shelter under a tree or an overpass. Summer in the Balkans increasingly resembles a string of extremes - and the sooner we accept that, the less each new storm will surprise us.