From the front lines in Ukraine to ordinarily damp Belgium, a shortage of rainfall has left much of Europe parched halfway through spring.
The early drought spells trouble for supply chains and farmers — with potential knock-on effects for industry, trade and global food security, adding to the economic turmoil triggered by Donald Trump’s erratic tariff announcements.
The European Drought Observatory’s most recent update from mid-March places parts of Poland, Ukraine, Greece, the Balkans, Sweden, Ireland, Germany and more in its orange “warning” category, while the southeastern Spanish coast is already on red alert.
While factors such as water mismanagement contribute to dry conditions, scientists say that the effects of man-made climate change, which include increasingly irregular rainfall patterns and hotter temperatures, will lead to worse and more frequent droughts in Europe.
A lack of rainfall combined with unseasonably warm weather — the continent experienced its hottest March on record last month — is driving this current drought, said the observatory’s lead researcher, Andrea Toreti.
“The situation we are observing is causing quite some concern,” he said, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. There, “the rainfall deficit has been building up over the last 60 to 80 days, and it’s accelerating. … We’re monitoring this closely because it’s evolving very fast.”
The present conditions resemble those ahead of Europe’s devastating 2018 drought, Toreti said. How severe this year’s drought becomes will depend on the weather in the coming few weeks, he added — and it’s not looking good.
“The coming weeks will be critical. If it doesn’t rain in the coming weeks, we’re looking at serious impacts on agriculture, for example,” he said. “If we look at the climate predictions for the coming three months in the areas already suffering from low rainfall, the forecasts are not encouraging.”
The situation in Germany has been deteriorating particularly fast, Toreti said.
The German Helmholtz Center’s drought monitor colors more than half the country in deep dark red, signifying “extraordinarily” dry topsoils. The situation is less dire at deeper soil levels, but that upper layer is crucial for the young plants and seedlings farmers are growing right now.
Meanwhile, the Rhine, a vital artery for transporting goods in Western Europe, is experiencing low levels usually seen in summer. As a result, barges can only pass the river with less than half their usual cargo, driving up logistics costs and slowing supply chains.
Belgium is also facing a dramatic rainfall deficit. According to the country’s Royal Meteorological Institute, there has been shockingly little rainfall between March 1 and Tuesday last week — with effectively no rain for 33 days during that period and only 7.8 millimeters of precipitation at its Brussels monitoring station. The average is around 50 mm.
“We’ve never experienced such a dry period,” the institute’s climatologist Pascal Mormal told L’Echo. But Belgium, which saw its wettest year on record in 2024, is relatively lucky for now, with plentiful groundwater reserves, and isn’t yet considered at risk of a full-blown drought.
The situation is far worse in Central and Eastern Europe, where a dry winter didn’t give soils a chance to recover from last year’s drought. Among the worst-hit countries are Poland and Ukraine, which are both world-leading grain exporters.
“A potential poor grain season as a result of intense drought can have a significant impact on the global grain market,” agricultural researcher Claas Nendel warned in a note circulated by the German meteorological service earlier this month, warning of a “drought year” for the region often described as Europe’s breadbasket.
While Europeans probably don’t need to worry about their supply of baguettes and focaccia, high grain prices can destabilize global food security — already under threat due to the United States’ humanitarian aid cuts.
Dry conditions also allow wildfires to spread with ease. In Liechtenstein and Austria, authorities are already fretting about fire weather. For Ukraine, the danger is further amplified by stray Russian missiles sparking fires in parched fields and forests.
The spring drought also puts pressure on the European Commission to unveil substantial measures as part of its much-anticipated Water Resilience Strategy, expected in June. The paper is meant to address the dual water challenges — too little and too much rain — brought about by global warming.
Both extremes are becoming a growing challenge for Europe as climate change disrupts the planet’s water cycle. While large swaths of the continent grapple with drought, Lanzarote in Spain’s Canary Islands this weekend declared a state of emergency following torrential rain and flooding.
Via Politico