The weather in Ukraine was very warm, as for December during the second and third ten-day periods of December. On warm days, the positive deviations of the average daily air temperature from the norm reached 5-12 °C. The average regional air temperature throughout the country was 5.0-7.6 °C higher than normal and ranged from 1, 5-2 °C in the northeastern regions to 5.5-7.5 °C in the western regions, in Transcarpathia and in the south of Odessa region. On warm days, the maximum air temperature in the eastern half of the country and the Cherkasy region increased to 8-13 °C, in the rest of the territory to 14-18 °C. The minimum air temperature in most of the country decreased to minus 3-6 °C and o minus 1-2 °C in the western, Vinnytsya and Mykolayiv regions. The surface of the soil or snow at night cooled to minus 1-5 °C, in the Chernihiv, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions – to minus 6-7 °С. During warm days, the soil surface heated up to 9 -17 °C, in the Vinnytsya and Odessa regions – up to 21-22 °C.
Precipitation was observed in the form of drizzle, fog, rain, snow and wet snow throughout the country. The average regional number ranged from 124 to 173% of the ten-day norm (16-26 mm). Most precipitation was recorded in the Zhytomyr, Volyn, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions – from 31 to 45 mm (213 – 321% of the ten-day norm). In the Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Odessa regions and Transcarpathia the amount of precipitation was close to normal and ranged from 13 to 32 mm, and 9 mm (75% of the ten-day norm) in the Kherson region. The average regional rainfall in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions was only 24 to 44% of the norm (4-7 mm) (Fig. 2). The daily maximum precipitation in some areas of the western regions reached 15-26 mm.
The snow cover was from 1 to 10 cm as of December 31 in the Carpathian mountains and in the fields of the western, northern, Vinnytsya, separate areas of the Cherkasy, Kirovograd, Poltava and Kharkiv regions. In places in the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions the cover was 11-19 cm, in the highlands of the Carpathians – 29-63 cm. In the rest of the country there was no snow in the fields.
The depth of soil freezing at the end of December over most of the country did not exceed 1-9 cm of soil freezing, or the soil was thawed.
The monthly precipitation in December was mainly 50-80% of the norm. The smallest precipitation (30%) compared to the norm fell in the Donetsk region. In the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions it was in total 100-134% of the norm.
As a result of abnormally warm weather during the ten-day period, weak growth processes were observed on winter crops over almost the entire territory except for the eastern regions, where the level of average and maximum temperatures was somewhat lower. According to agrometeorologists, growth of plant mass of 1.5-5 cm was observed. In many areas where the state of crops was weak from the beginning of autumn, it improved significantly, the plants turned green, which is typical for spring growth processes. The condition of the plants is mostly good and satisfactory. At the end of the decade there was termination of growth processes in winter crops.