Extremes: floods and drought affect European agricultural areas

According to the report, “a strong high-pressure area over northern Europe kept sunny skies and temperatures up to 3°C below normal,” which favored both the harvesting of summer crops and the sowing of winter crops. In Central Europe, the storm system remained stationary due to the same high pressure, causing rainfall of 10 to 100 millimeters between eastern France, Italy, central and southern Germany, the western Balkans, and southwestern Poland. “The precipitation volumes increased the moisture supply for winter grains and oilseeds, but also caused localized flooding,” the bulletin reported. In some areas of northwestern Italy, weekly totals exceeded 200 millimeters, reaching 262 millimeters. Meanwhile, the drought intensified in Hungary and the lower Danube River valley, under heat up to 5°C above normal and clear skies, which kept soil moisture severely limited for the emergence of winter crops. On the Iberian Peninsula, dry weather sustained ...