The figures coincided with a report published on Monday by the EU’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus, which said most of Europe experienced a drier-than-average July, with several local records broken in the west for low rainfall and drought in several areas of southwestern and southeastern Europe. The new data comes as the world faces a food crisis that is only just easing after Russia lifted its embargo on grain exports from Ukraine. Extreme weather and supply chain issues have exacerbated the crisis and are likely to persist for some time. A recent report by the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s science agency, predicted an 8-9% drop in EU corn, sunflower and soya production due to hot and dry summer conditions, well below the five-year average year. Copernicus Senior Scientist Freja Vamborg said that “the dry conditions from the previous months combined with the high temperatures and low rainfall rates seen in many areas in July may have adverse effects on agricultural production and other sectors, such as river transport and energy production’.
Months with little rain
In July, water reservoirs in many parts of Europe were at very low levels, insufficient to sustain demand, according to Copernicus. Southern England experienced its driest July since records began in 1836, while the month across the UK was the driest July for more than 20 years. The UK recorded just 46.3mm, or 56%, of average rainfall for the month following a long spell of drier than average months, with the exception of February. In France, July saw a total of 9.7 mm of precipitation, making it the driest July there since records began in 1959 and representing an 85% precipitation deficit compared to the 1991-2020 average. Meanwhile, in Italy, a lack of rainfall since December 2021 has hit northern parts of the country and the Pau River dried up completely in places earlier this summer. In mid-July in Cremona — about halfway along the Po — the water was more than 8 meters below the “hydrographic zero”, affecting hydropower production, agriculture and transport. Copernicus said the situation had improved as a result of rain towards the end of the month, which brought the river up to 40cm, although hydropower generation in the region was still affected. July was also globally one of the three warmest on record, close to 0.4 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average and the sixth warmest July in Europe, Copernicus said. Spain, France and the UK experienced at least one day above 40C last month. In the UK, temperatures soared above 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, Spain on Monday reported its warmest July in 60 years. “July 2022 was extremely hot in Spain, the warmest since at least 1961, with an average temperature of 25.6 ºC. [78.1 Fahrenheit]which is 2.7 ºC [4.9 Fahrenheit] higher than the normal average,” the country’s national meteorological service AEMET said in a tweet. July was “0.2 ºC [0.4 Fahrenheit] higher than that of July 2015, which was the warmest July so far,” he added. CNN’s Benjamin Brown and Molly Stazicker also contributed to this report from London.
