The results were based on data from a 10-day period in late July. The monitor said 45% of the country is now covered by “alerts”, meaning there is a moisture deficit in the soil, while 15% is under the stricter “alert” level, at which vegetation is stressed.
The data coincided with a report released Monday by the EU’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus, which said much of Europe experienced an above-average dry July, with several local records for low rainfall and drought being broken in the west, affecting several parts of the south-west and of the USA hit Southeastern Europe.
The new data comes as the world grapples with a food crisis that is only just abating as Russia lifts its blockade on grain exports from Ukraine. Extreme weather and supply chain issues have exacerbated the crisis and are likely to continue for some time.
A recent report by the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s scientific service, predicts an 8-9% fall in EU grain maize, sunflower and soybean production due to hot and dry summer conditions, well below the five-year average.
Copernicus Senior Scientist Freja Vamborg said that “dry conditions from the past few months combined with high temperatures and low rainfall rates seen in many areas in July are having a negative impact on agricultural production and other industries such as river transport and power generation could”.
Months with little rain
In July, water reservoirs in several parts of Europe were at very low levels and not enough to meet demand, according to Copernicus.
Southern England experienced the driest July since records began in 1836, while the UK had its driest July in more than 20 years. The UK recorded just 46.3mm or 56% of its average rainfall for the month after a long string of above average dry months excluding February.
France received a total of 9.7mm of rainfall in July, making it the driest July there on record in 1959 and an 85% rainfall deficit from the 1991-2020 average.
Meanwhile in Italy, a lack of rain since December 2021 has hit northern parts of the country and the Po River has dried up completely in places earlier this summer. In mid-July, the water in Cremona – about halfway along the Po – was more than 8 meters below “hydrographic zero”, affecting hydroelectric power generation, agriculture and transport.
Copernicus said the situation had improved due to rains towards the end of the month that brought a 40cm increase in flow, although hydroelectric power production in the area was still affected.
July was also one of the three warmest on record globally, nearly 0.4 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, and the sixth warmest July in Europe, Copernicus said.
Spain, France and the United Kingdom had at least one day above 40 degrees Celsius in the past month. Temperatures in the UK soared to over 40 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) on July 19, with the English village of Coningsby recording 40.3 degrees Celsius for the first time.
Meanwhile, on Monday Spain reported the hottest July in over 60 years.
“July 2022 was extremely hot in Spain, the warmest since at least 1961 with an average temperature of 25.6°C [78.1 Fahrenheit]that’s 2.7ºC [4.9 Fahrenheit] higher than the normal average,” the country’s national weather agency, AEMET, said in a post on Twitter. July was “0.2ºC [0.4 Fahrenheit] higher than July 2015, which was the warmest month of July to date,” he added.
CNN’s Benjamin Brown and Molly Stazicker also contributed to this report from London.