Limited impacts of cold spells on winter crops
Exceptionally low temperatures in several EU regions
According to the crop monitoring Bulletin for Europe, the weather in Europe has been marked by three cold spells this year.
The third of these, which occurred between 7 and 15 February, was the most pronounced and affected the largest area: first in northern Europe, northern Poland, Germany, the Benelux countries and northern France, and then, for one day only, in Hungary, south-eastern Europe and Turkey.
In several regions, minimum temperatures were among the lowest of the past 50 years.
Nevertheless, negative impacts on winter crops are expected to have been limited, as most of the areas affected were protected by snow cover during the coldest periods.
Some frost damage is expected to have occurred in western Germany, eastern France, Hungary, south-eastern Europe and Turkey, in areas without significant snow cover and where frost tolerance was poorly developed due to the prevailing warmer-than-usual conditions preceding the cold spell.
Continued warm and wet conditions in south-eastern Europe
In contrast, considering the review period as a whole (1 January – 15 February), in most parts of southern Europe average temperatures were around 2 °C above the long-term average.
Rainfall was above average in most parts of Europe, with the highest anomalies in Italy, the Balkan region, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, where abundant rainfall (already reported in the January issue of the Bulletin) continued. Well-above-average rainfall was also observed in eastern Spain and parts of Ukraine.
CEGLAR Andrej;
CERRANI Iacopo;
SEGUINI Lorenzo;
PANARELLO Lorenzo;
TORETI Andrea;
ZUCCHINI Antonio;
BIAVETTI Irene;
MULHERN Grainne;
VAN DEN BERG Maurits;
2021-05-26
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC124847
2443-8278 (online),
OP KJ-AW-21-002-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC124847,
10.2760/85001 (online),
