Agrometeorology: moderate heat is coming, with little precipitation

By: STA Date: 2024. 07. 19. 09:15

In the heat that lasted for ten days, showers mostly brought relief only in a scattered manner, but on Wednesday there were severe thunderstorms accompanied by downpours in many places in the drought-stricken areas of the Great Plain, so the drought has eased in these places, HungaroMet Zrt. wrote in its agrometeorological analysis on Thursday.

(Photo: Pixabay)

According to the information, the heat will moderate in the coming days. A temporary end to the heat wave is expected in the middle of next week, however, significant rainfall is only likely in a few places. They pointed out that hot, dry airwaves had shaped the weather for the past ten days, and although there had been some rainfall somewhere in the country every day, it had been scattered and few places had more than ten millimeters of rain. On Wednesday, on the other hand, showers and intense thunderstorms with downpours occurred in several places east of the Danube, from which 10-20 and 20-60 millimeters of precipitation fell in a larger area. In these places, the drought eased, but in most parts of Transdanubia and in the lowland landscapes that were not affected by major rains, the drought continued to increase, they pointed out. They added: the upper half-meter soil layer is critically dry in a large area, in the southern and eastern parts of the country there are areas where the moisture content of the upper one-meter soil layer does not even reach 40 percent of the usable water content for plants.

The temperature was 5-9 degrees Celsius higher than usual at this time, cold fronts brought relief only to the northwestern and western regions of Transdanubia – they indicated

They wrote: the vegetation, including the planted plants, are two or three weeks ahead of normal in their development. The wheat harvest is slowly coming to an end, the dry, warm weather of the last two weeks was favorable for this work. Sunflowers and corn are nearing the end of flowering, they would need the most moisture now, 100 millimeters of rain per month would be ideal. However, this is obtained without irrigation only in a few spots in the country affected by major downpours. In large areas, plants only find moisture in the deeper soil layers. The heat combined with the drought is extremely unfavorable, it also shortened the flowering period, and this will also be reflected in the yield averages, the analysis states.

MTI