Even three weeks after the floods, the soil in the Czech Republic is more than 90 percent saturated at a depth of up to one meter in most areas. In the entire territory, without exception, there is more water in the soil than is usual for this time, according to the information published today by the creators of the Intersucho project. They compare the current state with the average state for the years 1961 to 2015. According to the forecast, soil moisture should remain high and only on the leeward side of the Ore Mountains should the deeper soil layers dry out.
The floods ended a dry episode that began around mid-August and affected a large part of the country. Before the arrival of the rains, farmers were unable to properly sow winter crops because the soil was extremely dry and dusty. Now they have another problem with the fact that the fields are extremely soaked and it is difficult to enter them with equipment either for sowing or harvesting.
Rainfall is expected to range from five to 20 millimeters this week, most on the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. “After that, it will rain lightly on Thursday and Sunday,” the creators of the project said. Until Thursday, temperatures can still range up to around 20 degrees during the day, but only if low cloud cover does not persist during the day. After that, it should cool down, the highest daytime temperatures should not exceed 15 degrees and the morning temperatures should fall below five degrees Celsius. The evaporation will be weak and the moisture in the soil will be maintained.
Most watercourses also maintain a higher water content than is usual for this period, according to the data of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. Flows are most often between 80 and 400 percent of normal for this period. “Only some watercourses that drain the northwest of the territory, or the Beskydy Mountains, are already below average,” said the hydrometeorologists.
Source: www.tyden.cz
