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I think you're exaggerating a bit, these were the temperatures of Budapest in july : https://www.accuweather.com/hu/hu/bu...weather/187423
The temperature never exceeded 40 celsius.
There are different plam tree species, some tolerate zero and subzero temperatures more than others. Those are artifically planted anyway not the natural vegetation here.
Temperatures being 1-2 celsius higher than 50 years ago doesn't make it non-continental. Hungary's climate was continental 100 years and it is continental today. Parts of Hungary were always "sandly". Hortobágy (and much of Hungary) is just part of the Eurasian steppe belt -- a characteristic of continental climates.
Hot summer doesn't make it non-continental either (there are different types of mediterranean climates and a mediterranean climate can have colder summers than continental climate, see San Francisco's case).
A climate is not classified based on temperatures of 2 or 3 months of the year, but based on the entire year and other factors as well (precipitation, vegetation etc)
Hungary's vegetation, distribution of precipitation throughout the year and temperature differences between the seasons make its climate continental rather than anything else. Hungary's climate can't become exactly like that of Italy and coastal Croatia because the climate in those places is determined by proximity to sea.
In the future Hungary's climate can become warmer and more desert-like than it is now, but for the time being it is continental more than anything else (and in my opinion it will remain so).
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