Weather across Romania will become unstable with strong winds, heavy rain, storms and hail expected for several regions in Central, Eastern and Southern Romania, authorities announced on Monday. The Environment Ministry issued a yellow code warning to 23 prefectures including several large cities and surrounding areas - Bucharest, Iasi, Constanta and Brasov.

The warning says torrential rains, winds of up to 50-70 km/h and even stronger in mountainous areas, storms and hail storms are expected to hit in the coming days.

The first areas to be hit are Muntenia and Dobrogea in south-south east, southern Moldova, to be followed by Moldova and Eastern Carpathians.

Strong winds and slow visibility forced authorities to temporary halt traffic on a section of the A2 Highway linking Bucharest and Cernavoda, the main route from the Romanian capital to the Black Sea coast on Monday.

And in the county of Constanta three people were reported dead on Monday. The three were killed as a tree fell on their car near the town of Basarabi. Two other people were seriously injured, according to local authorities. They were returning from the seaside to Bucharest when the tree was brought down by strong winds.