From the EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE
Much of the European continent has been affected by severe drought in June and July 2015, one of the worst since the drought and heat wave of summer of 2003, according to the latest report by the JRC’s European Drought Observatory (EDO). The drought, which particularly affects France, Benelux, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, northern Italy and northern Spain, is caused by a combination of prolonged rain shortages and exceptionally high temperatures.
Satellite imagery and modelling revealed that the drought, caused by prolonged rainfall shortage since April, had already affected soil moisture content and vegetation conditions in June. Furthermore, the areas with the largest rainfall deficits also recorded exceptionally high maximum daily temperatures: in some cases these reached record values.
Another characteristic of this period was the persistence of the thermal anomalies: in the entire Mediterranean region, and particularly in Spain, the heat wave was even longer than that of 2003, with maximum daily temperatures consistently above 30°C for durations of 30 to 35 days (even more than 40 days in Spain).
While sectors such as tourism, viticulture and solar energy benefited from the unusual drought conditions, many environmental and production sectors suffered due to water restrictions, agricultural losses, disruptions to inland water transport, increased wildfires, and threats to forestry, energy production, and human health.
Rainfall is urgently needed in the coming months to offset the negative impacts of the 2015 drought situation. The current seasonal weather forecast envisages more abundant rains for the Mediterranean region in September, but no effective improvement is yet foreseen for parts of western, central and eastern Europe.
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Definition of drought in English:
noun
A prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.
Source : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/drought
I am not sure I would be able to consider a month or two of slightly below average rainfalls as a drought.
Last Thurday, 13th August, there were widespread rains storms that affected most of France and moved across into Germany.
In this area on the french mediteranean coast, something like 30cm of rain fell in 24h and the ground was boggy and staturated on Friday morning. Much to the delight of the wine growers who regard rain at this time of year as money falling from heaven.
I guess the “drought” is over before it started.
This must be some kind of joke.
As a result of statistical cherry-picking of June-July, they can show that about 20% of Europe has had its driest season for 12-25 years. You have at least 6 choices of two-month periods in a year. The probability you find 20% of Europe 20-year record dry at a particular year is about what? 20 per cent? Or more? And, honestly, these folks are as happy with record warm, wet, frost, wind, low pressure (sea level!), snowstorm, lack of snow, just name it. So practically they have, like the Yellow Press, always something in their back-pocket.
Sorry, Paris is too late. The tipping point was in September 2015, when the Arctic melts.
BTW I spent the last month working for two wine growers here, the last week picking a very good crop. No one has been talking about a “drought”.
More rain in much of France forecast for tommorow:
http://www.meteofrance.com/previsions-meteo-france/metropole
Note who is reporting this:
European Drought Observatory (EDO)
Drought News August 2015
Can’t justify funding for a Drought Observatory if they can’t produce a drought, can we?
WOW, temps have been “consistently” above 30 deg C , ooo-errrr ! That is what is called summer in this part of the world,
The Med is hot and sunny in July? That is why it is main holiday destination for most of Europe.
In short this is not claimed to be reliable, no one is taking responsability for it, feel free to mis-represent as required for your own agenda ….
Nowhere in the report are the terms “drought” or “severe drought” defined. Neither are there any rainfall figures, not one. Just another undefined “Standardized Precipitation Index “.
Despite the citation about temperature anomalies above, there are NO figures for anomalies anywhere in the report. All the maps are actual temperatures so they present nothing to support thier claim of temps “significantly above the seasonal norm.”
Totally meaningless, unscientific hype.
Errr. Here in Oz we measure droughts in YEARS OF NO RAIN not months of lower than usual rain.
“Satellite imagery and modelling ” is the giveaway that this is this some kind of joke, surely ?
Oh, no! It’s the worst it’s ever been since 12 years ago! It’s unprecedented!
Hey, guys, how have you been since 1003? 3?
AnonyMoose,
No, it’s only “one of the worst” since 2003!!
It must be GW since there have been so many in the last 12 years (then again, I guess it gets warm every year about this time).
As a side note to those of you in the drought zone (or near vicinity), I had a work trip to Spain for the first time in my life for two weeks in early July and it was absolutely spectacular!! Even had a free weekend to go see the rock of Gibraltar (as a geologist, couldn’t not go once we were that close). Would go back in a heartbeat if I had the chance, no matter what the temp.
Many of the named regions have what is called a Mediterranean Climate, same as California. In fact, this is where that climate regime got it’s name! What a coincidence.
And guess what the defining feature of this climate is?
Hold on to your hats….drum roll please…summer drought!
Yes, if it rained much in summer in Spain, it would be very unusual.
When do we get the part of the story that says” Despite periodic regional droughts all over the world, which always occur somewhere at any given time, the world remains very well fed with record or near record crop yields and harvests. Famines, which have historically occurred with regularity somewhere in the world, are nearly unheard of in recent years. Even with a record number of people on the Earth, and fewer than ever of them engaged in actually producing any food at all, people the world over are generally much better fed than ever in history, with people in even formerly destitute countries growing fat!”
Well,. when?
Sorry, but you are wrong: only Spain (but not Atlantic coast) and South France, among them, have a Mediterranean type of climate. We can add a spot in North Italy around Genoa, where winters are mild and July is usually a dry month, but that’s all. E.g. summer is the wettest season in Italian Alps.
But on the overall discussion we agree, as far as I know there was no e.g. water shortage of any kind. Many areas, like North Italy, came from a couple of exceptionally rainy years (and winter 2014 was a record-breaking for snowfalls in Italian Alps) with a rainy 2014 summer, so while the summer drought can be felt somehow (dry greens, bad corn harvest, good winegrapes etc.) it was not a so big problem. And anyway, it is now over!
Good to see they have used some models. Now they just need to apply a good Hockey Stick.
Probably started adapting the climastrology models to “drought” and then “adjusting” rainfall to match.
I am living in north of Brittany, west of France, where there is a big red spot. I’m pretty surprised to discover that I’m living in drought conditions. It’s true that june was pretty nice and warm. But july was awful : sun seen once or twice per week, rain, wind, low temperature (at most 20°C, most often 15°). I recover water from my house’s roof : tanks are full. They were empty at the end of june. And august is so far not better. South of Brittany was affected by some drought in july but it is now over.
Probably it would be categorized as a balmy, good beer drinking summer, like we generally get across Canada in July and August (although the last couple of years have been comparatively chilly). But gee, the worst since 2003! I’ll bet there were some beauties 20,000yrs ago when the air was very dry but a tad nippy over Europe and N.America.
The fools! Didn’t they realise that if only they stopped emitting carbon, they’d abolish all flood and drought? Oh wait, that only happens in the opium dreams of the criminally insane. Oh well, its still worth doing, because Gaia will love us being powered by rainbows and unicorn farts, which between them provide the same as wind and solar. And for the dark times when the wind doesn’t blow, and there’s no unicorns or rainbows about, we could replace fossil fuels with human slavery. After all, each tonne only produces enough energy for ten years of human labour. Enough serfs and we’ll live happily ever after in a clean shiny drought free world, where everybody loves everybody, and Greece loans us money. What’s the downside?
Well put Leo. My computer model (words written in a computer program eg Word that make a certain claim) shows an undeniable correlation between current CO2 levels and the end of slavery. If we genuinely want to save the planet we will have to reverse that!
I was sent to Belgium in 1951 and worked/lived initially in Liege, later in Bruxelles. I found it to be a beautiful country with an appalling climate– endless rain and drizzell and fog, so I requested a move and was able to get transferred to Rome for the next four years. What a delightful change at that time! Now Rome is [a mess] and if I were still there, I might request a transfer back to Belgium to enjoy sunshine for a change!
Why does it say Now Rome is me? What I wrote is “Now Rome is a mess.”
Why does it say Now Rome is me? What I wrote is “Now Rome is a mess.”
That’s happened to us all, sometimes with hilarious results. Yours is very funny and had me wondering what you meant.
Good thing to have written on your gravestone.
I wonder why the Commission is not equally concerned about snow remaining in Scotland almost all the way through the summer.
You should not tell them; they might conclude that the global warming is causing an ice age to come, and you’d to stop heating with coal.
Allow me to add few information from a hydrologist from Czech Republic. This year was a serious drought here. It is comparable but more severe than 2003 (when speaking about streaming flows) and probably equal to 1947 event. Until now, it has been a one year event not affecting water supply (thanks to reservoirs). If you are interested, look at following low flow discharge time series of Elbe River in Děčín of app. 51 000 km2 representing majority of CZ teritory. Keep in mind that the series is affected by reservoirs construction after 1954. https://mobile.twitter.com/CHMU_hydrologie/status/629598016207474688
Drat. I should have waited two years. In 2013 I spent some time by the River Elbe in Germany. My hotel was only partly open as it had been flooded a few months previously. And the river pleasure boats were only going do far as the river was so high they could not get under the bridges.
Also in Slovakia June and July were very dry, but the drought is not so bad as in e.g. 2012 and 1947, where a dry hot summer followed a dry cold winter. Are you sure that in 2012 was not the same in Czech Republic? In Slovakia it is now over, as in North Italy and other European regions: did you not have any rain in the last week? I mean, not just a shower, but a series of rainy days (also with thunderstorms).
According to the Crutem4 not only European but the global temperatures are dominated by two N. Atlantic, one Pacific, one Indo-Pacific and one solar component
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CT4-Spectrum.gif
4-5 years: ENSO
9.1 years: N. Atlantic SST (AMO)
21.5 years: Solar magnetic field (Hale cycle)
26.6 years: Asian monsoon
60.2 years: N. Atlantic SST (AMO), caution there are 164 years of data; 60 years is on the border of acceptable certainty.
If a measly 2 months qualifies as a drought (which I doubt) then why not 2 weeks? Or 2 days? Or even 2 hours?
That way we could have several droughts in a month, or a week, or a day.
Sounds a lot more dangerous.
After two days of relatively warm weather in the UK, they call it a heatwave. So a couple of weeks without a lot of rain is now a drought. Really makes a lot of sense.
At this point what does it matter ?!
Yes, it is true about drought, in Slovakia at my place it was not raining from end of June, till around 15th August. And it was hot. For sure I don’t remember so many days with temperature over 30C during summer and met office is saying, that it is first time ever to have around 30 days over 30C . I was there it was 38.5C on thermometer outside of my house. With 45% humidity you can compare it to Death Valley 46C…
But…
First tomatoes in my garden started to ripe and be red on 15th August. I remember previous years we were picking red tomatoes whole July. Same story with my mom complaining that tomatoes are late this year on the other end of country. And tomatoes like and need hot weather, they are growing best in Spain where is easily over 40C… So the sum of hot days from May till August doesn’t look good for tomatoes.
According met office, there were some days in July where on some places absolute record for lowest temperature was broken. It was around 1.2C.
Yesterday I noticed that there was 3C morning temperature in Poprad, city under High Tatra mountains, coldest city in country, but it is August…
Look at inhibiting the wind in the Atlantic. Greetings from Polish.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-38.17,0.29,1349
Just yesterday I got picture from Slovakia, meter in empty kids pool. 14cm of water. That was 140mm precipitation in 4 days. My place is in driest place in Slovakia, in rain shadow of Carpathian Mountains. With annual average amount of precipitation 500mm. So that was about drought in Europe. Got quarter of year precipitation in 4 days…
Greetings from California.
I lived 3 years in Nitra, I think that 2012 was even worse: for sure it was worse for drought, since between January and October weather was very sunny and pretty dry. But also the summer was long and very hot, maybe this year it was more concentrated in the middle of the season (early June, all July and early August), but in 2012 I remember very well a “Mediterranean” August and dry, hot weather going on to early October. Now it is anyway over, I was in Nitra in the middle of the week, and they have got a lot of rain together with cool temperatures. Maybe there will be some warm weather back at the end of the month, but just a few days.
For anyone who has seen Central Australia, the application of the term term ‘drought’ for anywhere in Europe is ludicrous. ‘Dry period’, maybe, but ‘drought’, no. As for ‘drought in Kent’, spare me.
Being from Australia I am always bemused by European (particularly UK) news outlets that get all worked up over a week of 25C and “only” 15mm of rainfall, in the middle of summer.
It’s comparable (actually, slightly better than) the current winter conditions at my house and I’ve had to mow the lawn twice this week it’s growing so fast.
And I had to escape Norway and seek climate refugee for a month in The Netherlands , its week 3 and im finally dried up , from 1 November 2014 till march 31 2015 we had a record of 2177 mm rain / around 6 ft of rain.
And way more to come i,m afraid.
In Southern Spain, there are quite a few Norwegian climate refugees, including my in laws.
When my wife moved to England, she often use to comment that the thing she missed most was the lack of seasons. Of course, in some parts of Norway they get all 4 seasons in 1 day!
Great!
This gives me another chance to post “does anyone who actually live in Britain recognise this drivel?”
Look at Britain – apparently we have areas of drought on the south coast. Err, except we don’t. It’s only been slightly drier than average in the south and much of the rest of Britain has had a washout summer, especially in Scotland where, as many have pointed out, snow has never left the Cairngorms fully.
I love it when these political bodies publish nonsense that is so easily invalidated.
Ian, sorry to disappoint you – but there were parts of the south coast of England that were in a drought until very recently – in exactly the places shown in the map. I live in one of them. Somehow the area north of Southampton managed to avoid every set of rain and storms that affected other parts of England in June and July – I remember one evening when Bournemouth got flooded by a set of storms while we had only a couple of spots of rain. Fortunately, we have had some decent rain in the last couple of weeks.
1538-1541 seems to have been the real doozie for drought in Europe. It passed. The climate changed, doncha know.
moso squared
‘The climate changed, doncha know’.
Well, sincerely, the science is, ah, “settled”.
it is not possible that climate changed in the Sixteenth Century – or at any time before the 1950s.
Ice Ages, the Carboniferous (Mississippian and Pennsylvanian for our friend in N. America) – all invariant – until the hockey-schtick.
Mods – of c o u r s e the blooming (!) climate changed.
It’s what the climate does . . .
Auto
Definition of drought in UK
A drought is usually defined as an extended period of weather (usually around 3 weeks) where less than a third of the usual precipitation falls.
Definition of drought in Australia
Drought in Australia is defined by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology as rainfall over a three-month period being in the lowest decile of what has been recorded for that region in the past
Comments by Jim Sickman, Uni of California
Climate variability in California is extreme in relation to more mesic zones
In the context of century to millennial scale records of precipitation, our society overuses the term drought
Overuse of the term gives society a false impression of California’s hydrology and obscures the fact that water shortages are driven principally by human demand and are a near-permanent condition
Depends what your vegetation is used to, and how you use your water
…sectors such as…viticulture…benefited from the unusual drought conditions….
Huh?
Preference for the rare and scarce vintage gives the wine (from higher sugar grapes ) a pricing premium.
yup vines don’t like wet soils and love good weather and drier conditions. it means more sun thus better grapes to produce wine.
Wine growers don’t like rain when the fruit are ripening.
Humidity encourages fungal diseases
there we go! i live in the so called “drought impacted region”.
Okay it did rain not that much, but drought? dunno it’s still a very long way to go to equal what the years 1947 and 1976 did throw at us.(that was in my opinion a real drought), Also where i live we had thunderstorms that impacted coastal belgium only three times, so we still had more rain then elsewhere.
we have a very nice summer one for the books of “beautifull summer, but these are rare indeed to remember a similar nice summer we had to go back to 2003…
it is true that some regions can encounter for european standards “drought conditions” (these conditions are not the same as for in California as we have a wetter climate here), but the issue that happened here is that most rain in summer comes from thunderstorms (summer months in Belgium are also the wettest months of the year). and you bet thunderstorms were more local this year then they generally are.
but drought? hmmmm not really
Tell the POPE. Either he’s the man or not.
“Rainfall is urgently needed in the coming months to offset the negative impacts of the 2015 drought situation.”
To quote Oscar Wilde: “When the Gods want to punish us they answer our prayers”.
Couldn’t be the El Niño event that is currently underwriting the fire policy of north central Washington State just now (Okanogan – google it before it’s all burned up). Must be my Harley.
I remember in PA just north of Philadelphia that the weather channels would report that we were in a drought. I was skeptical because I remembered some strong thunderstorms over the same time period. That is when I got a rain gauge to get my own data. It usually worked out that the precipitation was more normal than what was reported on media, after I had my own data. This is probably why I am skeptical of the government data now and never accepted the global warming scare. I was in the Navy and know from that that government data is not reliable…
it all depends where the station is located. see my comment: for official recording (uccle) July was dry, even very dry, but 50 miles further there was local flooding paired with the thunderstorms.
if i would have set a pluviometer here i am sure i would have recorded a “normal july value” but the one in uccle just 50 miles further that was not hit by these thunderstorms would have an “abnormally dry july”.
especially in summer here rain can really vary from ‘normal’ to ‘dry’ on a distance of a few miles due to the nature of the rain and it’s type (mainly local thunderstorms with downpours)…
so yes it is good to be sceptic: you can’t say what goes on for a region just based on one weather station.
Seriously though, in Southern Spain these past couple of years it has been very dry. There have been periods between January and June with only a few days rain and none of which has been particularly heavy. The last couple of years, they have not had the heavy autumn rain.
That said, it has not been that hot these past two years. 2003 was of course a hot year, and 2012 was quite hot, but this year, late May and June have been warmer than average, but as from about the second week of July, it has been cooler than average.