May in Ukraine has become one of the driest in the last 30 years

May 2024 became one of the driest months in Ukraine in the last 30 years, and in Cherkasy Oblast - in the last 100 years, the Ukrhydrometeorological Center reported in its decadal report.

 

During the last 5 days of May, rains fell only in some areas of the southern regions of Ukraine, but they almost did not change the situation with a shortage of soil moisture. Due to the lack of precipitation in the entire territory of the country in the third decade of May, agrometeorological conditions worsened for all types of crops.

 

However, thanks to low air temperatures, the deterioration of agrometeorological conditions did not become critical, and they remained satisfactory for the vegetation of most agricultural crops.

 

Long-term rainfall deficit led to drying and compaction of the upper soil layers, which created unfavorable conditions for the initial development of late technical and garden crops. In the southern and eastern regions, drought conditions developed under the early ear crops.

 

"As of May 31, an air-soil drought of varying intensity (with a decrease in the level of productive moisture to 50 mm and below, and in some places up to the complete drying of a one-meter layer of soil) was observed in most areas of Kharkiv, Kherson, Zaporizhia, southern and central Dnipropetrovsk, western Poltava regions ", meteorologists report.