The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (Copernicus EMS) warned on Tuesday 11 April about drought conditions in northern and eastern Europe.
The European Monitoring Programme for the State of the Planet published the findings of its European Drought Observatory on Twitter. The map generated by the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) reveals that, for the second half of March 2023, parts of Ireland and the UK were in a state of urgent alert. Copernicus also draws attention to Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Scandinavia, Poland and Lithuania.
Already, in its report published on 21 March, the indicator showed widespread warming and severe drought conditions for the end of February 2023 in southern Spain, France, Ireland, the UK, northern Italy, Switzerland, most of the Mediterranean islands, the Romanian and Bulgarian Black Sea regions, and Greece. This is due to an exceptionally dry and warm winter, according to Copernicus EMS.
Most of Europe experienced above-average temperatures in mid-winter. The 30-day average temperature anomaly on 20 December 2022 was between three and six degrees for central Europe and eastern Scandinavia, with a small area above six degrees on the Romanian-Ukrainian border.
Elsewhere, the anomaly was generally between one and three degrees. However, in Scotland, Ireland and parts of central Scandinavia, temperatures remained close to the average, compared to the 1989-2021 reference period, while Iceland had significantly lower temperatures.
To read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/69u (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)