After very warm and dry weather, a significant change came last week. In addition to a noticeable cooling, the Low Gabriel also brought with it long-awaited heavier rainfall, especially in western and central Slovakia.
Thanks to the heavy rainfall, the meteorological drought in western Slovakia and to a large extent also in central Slovakia was ended last week. In eastern Slovakia, the Low Gabriel brought mainly strong winds, which caused significant damage in several locations, but in terms of precipitation, the low pressure area was insignificant and brought only partial relief from the drought.
The rain helped to moisten mainly the top layer of soil up to 40 cm, which is also reflected in the relative soil saturation in the entire soil profile (0-100 cm). Soil saturation values up to 30% occur in almost 51% of the area of Slovakia. In western Slovakia, the relative soil saturation in the lower layer is still below 10%, in the Banská Bystrica, Košice and partly in the Prešov region, the lower soil layer is saturated only up to 20%.
If we compare the drought this year with drought 2022, we find that this year clearly surpassed it, especially in terms of soil drought. While in 2022, the soil drought peaked at the end of July, when extreme drought (S5) covered 59.7% of the territory of Slovakia, this year the drought peaked at the beginning of July, and the S5 category covered up to 87.5% of the territory. This is up to a quarter of the territory of Slovakia more than in 2022. Moreover, its development was not gradual from spring to summer as in 2022, but we recorded exceptional to extreme drought in some regions also at the end of winter, during spring and summer.
More information:
https://www.shmu.sk/sk/?page=2049&id=1645