According to the meteorological EU Crop Monitoring Bulletin, the abrupt drop in temperatures and persistent wetter-than-normal weather conditions are having mixed impacts on fall-sown crops. The cold wave is expected to have caused damage to winter cereals in Central Europe, especially in areas with wet soils without insulating snow cover.
In large parts of central and northern Europe, temperatures reached clearly negative values, while winter crops were still relatively vulnerable due to the preceding warmer-than-usual weather conditions and late sowing.
The cold wave in Finland and the Baltic countries is expected to have a limited or no impact on crops, despite the very low temperatures (locally down to -20 °C), due to an already well-present insulating snow layer.
In northern Germany, Denmark, southern Sweden and northern Poland, the sudden drop in temperatures, combined with high groundwater levels and the lack of snow cover, is likely to have caused local damage to winter crops. In southeastern Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, southern Poland and Slovakia, potential damage was limited by snowfall, which regionally brought more than 20 cm of fresh snow to insulate crops from the cold.
Fields and fields that were too wet, partly accompanied by snow, disrupted the end of sowing, especially of soft wheat, in Northern France, the Benelux countries and West Germany. It is unlikely that harvests will be fully realized in these regions. In France, about ten percent of the planned fields for soft wheat remained unsown.
The large amount of rain in South-Central and Eastern Europe had little or no negative impact on crops. It was particularly beneficial in Romania and Bulgaria, where it ended the previous drought, which – together with above-average temperatures – supported the emergence of late-sown winter crops.
In Belarus, northeastern Ukraine and European Russia, the thick layer of snow over winter wheat fields provides sufficient insulation against severe cold events. This is not the case in the southernmost parts of European Russia, where high temperatures prevented the accumulation of snow.
According to the European monthly agr weather report, there was a clear rainfall deficit along the Mediterranean coast of Spain and in southern Italy. This is particularly worrying in Sicily, where drought, together with a marked delay in sowing, has led to underdeveloped winter cereals, especially durum wheat.