This winter is likely to end up as normal and very dry. December was normal, January above normal and February will be normal or under -normal. Thanks to the February cooling, the early onset of the growing season was avoided. For TASR he evaluated this Climatologist Pavel Matejovič.
“If the weather continued in the January trend and the temperatures would rise in February over 15 degrees Celsius, there would be a risk that some fruit trees could bloom in early March, as it happened last year. Currently, such a state is no longer in danger, ” He claims Matejovič.
However, in terms of precipitation According to him, this winter will be one of the driest winters in the history of meteorological measurements. Among other things, this is also reflected in the missing snow in the mountains. The continuous snow cover is only in high mountain positions, but even there is its thickness for this time of year very low.
“Most of the snow is currently in Chopok, where it is about one meter height, on Lomnicky shield there are 50 centimeters less. Normally there is about two meters more about two meters of snow. For example, during last February, which was extremely warm, there was more than three meters of snow in the same period, ” The expert stated.
He pointed out that the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute is currently monitoring Significant to exceptional drought in almost all western Slovakia. Locally in Záhorie, Hronská Upland and surroundings of Bratislava, there is extreme soil drought.
If there are no more heavy rainfall in the coming weeks, there may be a very unfavorable situation at the beginning of the growing season, which can negatively affect mainly farmers and foresterssays Matejovič. The snow cover is a natural water reservoir.
“During the spring pig, drowning snow supplies watercourses that make the water reach vegetation. In addition, the temperature gradually rises in the spring and the evaporation increases. If there is a lack of precipitation, the country is even more dried, ” The climatologist explained that the decisive period in terms of precipitation would be the first half of spring.
