Not since the EDO began collecting such data in 2012 have Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, Serbia, Slovakia or Switzerland seen a more parched August, the EDO figures show.
On average, 58 percent of the European Union’s territory, or nearly 2.5 million square kilometres, was affected by a lack of water in August.
That is 25 percentage points higher than the 2012-2025 average for the month, but still short of the record of 63 percent seen in August 2022.
Central Europe was the worst-affected region, with two-thirds of Hungary and a third of Slovakia and Serbia under the EDO’s highest drought alert warning in August.
Based on satellite observations, the EDO’s drought alert takes into account three parameters: precipitation, soil humidity and the state of vegetation.
According to a study by the Climameter scientific consortium published on Thursday, “a three-month dry spell as severe as the June-August 2026 European drought is now roughly three times more likely to occur than it was in the past (1950-1987).”
“When similar weather patterns form today, the resulting conditions are significantly drier than they would be in a world without climate change.” (AFP)
