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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Got of Skype with my brother a day ago, Drought? he said? Typical dutch summer weather, 2-3 days of “warm” (27-30 C) followed by a system that, as usual drenched Holland with t-storms , hail and small flooding which in Holland seems to be easy to happen ( being ~ 10 m below sea level in 1/3rd of the nation. There also seems to be no mention in these reports that Holland is roughly speaking about a 100 miles wide(E-W) and a 150 miles “tall” (N-S) in other words as far as weather is concerned it is a blib on any radar and flatter than a pancake, storm systems are fast, occasionally violent because of that, no mountains to break storms up and the North Sea is not much of a break either. There are other geographical problems involved but that would take a lot more space to explain. But the Dutch know them! Drought in the BeNeLux? I seriously doubt it. Those countries have more water then they can deal with, what a joke! They more than likely love a dry spell !
Well said Mike, Breton 22 and Ian Magness! It may have been a little drier than normal in Central Europe but, for the record, the UK has had another cold, wet, miserable summer. Yes, I know, weather isn’t climate but once again we are having a crap summer. It has been COLD for months in the UK. We had a couple of days of decent weather when the alarmists shrieked about the hottest day evaaaah (at Heathrow airport, measured next to a jet engine on the baking Tarmac) but apart from that it has, once again, been COLD and WET.
It is almost 7am on Saturday morning as I write. Mid-August. The height of the British summer. And guess what? Yes, it is RAINING. If you live in the UK it is easy to understand the research that points to a mini Ice Age on the way. In fact, the walarmists have been unusually quiet here for a few years because it is SO BLOODY COLD. And wet. All the time. So anyone going on about global warming are likely to have their arse kicked.
Anyway, sod this. I’m flying to Barbados on Thursday in search of actual sunshine. And the EU Bureau of Money Draining Idiotic Climate Crap or whatever they are called can go and fuqu themselves…
There were some days in California this past summer in which the record high precipitation for the date was set.
In numerous instances, the old record was broken by infinity percent.
I’ll say it before someone else does, as is the custom here:
“Ohhh! I see they got out the scary red color” 😉
That’s how serious the current drought situation is in Europe.
Saturday
http://www.woeurope.eu/images/charts/eu/contour/20150822/euro/euro/1440188902/vn.gif
Sunday
http://www.woeurope.eu/images/charts/eu/contour/20150823/euro/euro/1440188921/vn.gif
Monday
http://www.woeurope.eu/images/charts/eu/contour/20150824/euro/euro/1440188979/vn.gif
legend
http://images.weatheronline.co.uk/daten/gifs/rgb_vn_cross.png
Your map is rubbish, Berényi! Rain on Monday? Not according to my local weather forecast
I’m in Southern Brittany. All my rainwater tanks are full. More rain forecast for this afternoon.
Harvest in England is phenomenal. I should know, I’m driving a conbine harvester.
Wow, since 2003, that long? It’s in the lifetime of some of my grandchildren!
In this region and neighbouring Dordogne and Poitou-Charante there have been drought restrictions – hosepipe bans etc. We have had a dry spring and summer including a heatwave in early July no rain whatsoever for about 8 weeks, unusually no thunderstorms . However since mid-July things are back to normal and all the fields have changed from brown to green. Just before the reversion to normal there was an item on BFMTV on the drought situation, I’m not sure if the French government appointed a Minister For Drought.
The same applies in Burgundy, Sandy.
The heatwave started at the end of June and we have had maximum temperatures in the mid-30s ever since except for the last week of July when there was a little respite and enough rain to fill the water butt.
Rain is forecast for the next two days but Meteo France is forecasting temperatures back in the 30s again from Wednesday and no rain for the following ten days.
I’m sorry that it’s been a piss awful summer in England but oddly enough England is not the same thing as Europe, an attitude which is one reason I no longer live there.
Here we have had temperatures and drought conditions and watering restrictions as severe as anything that we have had since 2003. Fact. Whether that is worth making a song and daance about is another matter altogether.
Sandy
Gosh, your grandchildren won’t know what rain is!
I trust that if the French government appoint a Minister For Drought he or she will be a former football referee.
Worked for Jim Callaghan!
Auto
And can I point out that we’re suffering the hottest morning since last night?
Southern England, sunshine and showers, soil perfectly moist, air packed with nutritious CO2, son expects to be harvesting until October, lawn needs cutting every 5 minutes, everything lush and green wherever you look. France is 70 miles South from here, 70 miles to the East and everything in between, can it really be that different?
That’s cause all the European rain failed to Finland. It was the worst summer in my memory. And now when work started, we have had two weeks of sun shine.
ONE of the worst in the last 12 YEARS?
Colour me unimpressed!
This is really what I tried to say in many words. *blush*
Looking at UK rainfall on the Met Office site for the last 7 months I see the following
Month Percentage of average rainfall
Jan 136
Feb 101
Mar 105
Apr 69
May 154
Jun 77
Jul 149
This is a funny sort of drought.
Spending time in Prague – the river is normal, and nobody among my friends has mentioned a drought and its not particularly hot. Travelling through the Alps and across northern Italy last week, the Alpine rivers were in full flow (maybe snowmelt!), and in south west France, it was green when normally yellow-brown. The Rhone was full. Like someone above said – if you are a Drought Observatory and funds are short, you don’t go looking for green patches.
Here in the South West its pretty wet.
tonyb
I recall seeing a Bangladeshi on television a few years ago. He responded to being told that Global Warming meant they were now in a permanent drought by expressing scepticism that man had such power over the weather. This was just before the Bangladeshi floods.
We lived in Oxford, England in 1975-6 and visited many parts of England and Scotland. It was a real drought for almost the entire period, and especially the spring and summer of 1976. Our week in Scotland, including three days around Skye, had no rain! My Aunt in London reported that the soil dried out so much that the apartment building she lived in had cracks in the walls and foundation due to the shrinking soil.
Nothing like this is happening now in Europe. It is has been quite dry (we saw this in the Stuttgart region of Germany last week, just before a wide-area rainstorm reached the region) but not to the level of past years.
References for the U.K. in 1975-76:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_United_Kingdom_heat_wave
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-23419036
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/philip-eden/The-greatest-drought-on-record.htm
http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1712/55
Abstract for the last reference:
The drought of 1975-76 that affected not only the British Isles but extended to much of the continent of Europe, became severe only after the exceptionally dry winter of 1975/76 when within most of England and Wales negligible recharge to aquifers occurred. Thus by the spring of 1976 when seasonal underground storage should have been at its peak, aquifer storage was already at a very low level. Since, however, ground-water levels in aquifers are controlled by local and variable base level drainage conditions, the extent to which further falls in level could occur under natural unconfined conditions was limited so that by autumn 1976 in most places levels were lower than those previously recorded by only a few metres. Within confined aquifers having lower storativities, effects were usually more severe and falls in level below those previously recorded of more than 10 m occurred. Had it not been for the exceptionally wet winter of 1974/75 when recharge to aquifers was generally well above average, groundwater levels in the autumn of 1976 might have been considerably lower. The authors have been unable to discern any long-term adverse effects on British aquifers in which by the early spring of 1977 groundwater levels had, in almost every known case, recovered to higher than average levels except in areas with levels lowered previously by over-abstraction. No permanent ill effects on groundwater quality have so far become apparent.
There is a connection between California/Pacific Northwest and the UK in their climate patterns. California also had drought between 1975/77. There is much more evidence for this connection in historical records and long term temp/rainfall studies.
I live in Troyes SE OF paris. I have lived here for 15 years and this summer can be described as a drought for this area. Since mid-May there has been 4 short periods of gentle rain and temperatures around 30 centigrade. So the headline is basically correct. But I accept that this is just weather. We have had two mild winters but I fear for the next one. Mother Nature may decide that PARIS 2015 needs a reminder that it is she who controls the climate and not IPCC.
funny i have that same feeling: a unusual wet autumn and a winter with a severe cold wave…..
http://notrickszone.com/2015/08/22/the-north-atlantic-ice-age-no-one-wants-to-acknowledge-record-snow-in-sweden-in-august-never-seen-so-much-snow-at-this-time/#sthash.e9Pyv90s.dpbs
“It turns out northern Europe has been downright frigid this summer, and the future looks pretty bleak”
This is something I said on 7/15 “There should be a sideways step coming in about 10 days from now, where the sea ice trend may even increase for several days and remain close to flat for up to 10 days.This could lead to a longer sideways trend that begins around the 3rd week of August and lasts until the end of September. Examples of what I am referring to would be the years 1979, 1988, 1997, and 2007.”.
===================================================================================
I believe that this sideways stepping of the Arctic sea ice is now underway and the process likely has much to do with the early cooling which is now evident in many locations around the NH. In the years 1988, 1997, and 2007 the stepping takes place on the downhill side of an El Nino or in a descending La Nina. In the 4 similar years mentioned above this process will start somewhere around the 222nd day up to the 230th day of the year. This year it appears to have started on the 224th day. It is now day 233, and this pattern runs up to day 271 approximately. The sea ice area was 3.587 million, rounded off. If the sideways stepping in Arctic sea ice is a continuing pattern, then the sea ice area minimum for 2015 should end around 3.30 million.
The above comment is based on what Cryosphere Today shows on their site. I thought that I had already made this comment, but it must have got lost.
Plus, I also thought that I had said that “the sea ice area was 3.587 on the 224th day”. Ten days later, day 234, the current sea ice area is 3.572 million km/sq.
Day 235, the Antarctic sea ice moves +0.045 to reach 3.617 million km/sq. It is how slightly higher than on day 224.
“Arctic sea ice” not “Antarctic sea ice” in the last comment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/34027724
Weather for the last week of August.
Is it a drought if it doesn’t melt?
Some snow left in Scotland too.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/scotland/11804149/Melting-snow-leaves-behind-magical-frozen-caves-in-Scotland.html
I am living surrounded by alarmists who hate me because I do not agree with accepted science. I am old enough to remember the junior senator Eugene McCarthy. I feel as if we are in the same type of environment. Thank you WUWT for helping me keep the faith.
..Satellite imagery and modelling revealed that the drought….
would this be the same satellite imagery that identified WMD, etc? and the same modelling that has produced the IPCC GHG warming projections!
And how come this is the first mention of any drought? I’ve heard nothing on MSM, which is unusual (especially for the BBC – which, btw, is not renewing its contract with the Met Office). Could it be that this is another alarmist claim just before Paris?
No problem, just convert the channel tunnel into a water conduit, and sell them the UK’s excess rainfall.
Eastern Europe, Romania: more than 2 weeks of orange and red code alarm for extreme heat, severe drought in most of the country, then, in just 24 hours, temperatures dropped with 15 Celsius degrees and we had hard rainfall, leading to temporary flooding for some parts of many cities/region. I wonder what’s influencing the weather to change so rapidly from an extreme to another? I know that oceans govern climate ( http://oceansgovernclimate.com/) and I use to read news on climate change,but I think that human intervention over oceans is making felt its presence in this way also.
Geoengineering And The Collapse Of Earth 2014 – THIS MUST BE SHARED!
ThinkOutsideTheTV
ThinkOutsideTheTV