The second ten-day period of October was characterized by almost dry and hot weather. The average regional air temperature over was 2.8-6.0 °C higher than normal and amounted to 12.4-14.1 °C. In the Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytsky, Rivne, Volyn, Ternopil , in individual points of the Cherkasy, Luhansk and Lviv regions the highest average ten-day average air temperature in the second ten-day period of October reached or exceeded by 1.0-2.3 °С during the observation period from 1961. The maximum air temperature increased to 23 – 26 °C.
In most areas there was no precipitation or the amount did not exceed 1-4 mm. Only in the Zaporizhzhya and Donetsk regions the ten-day rainfall amounted to 100-130% of the norm or 9-13 mm. The daily maximum precipitation in some areas of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya regions was 14–16 mm (1.3–1.6 of ten-day norms).
As of October 20, the reserves of productive moisture in the 0-20 cm soil layer under winter crops, as in the previous period, were assessed as insufficient (11-20 mm) in most areas in the Cherkasy, and unsatisfactory (1-10 mm) in many areas of Kyiv, Mykolayiv, northern Odessa, southern regions of Zaporizhzha and Donetsk regions. In many areas in the Odessa, Mykolayiv and Cherkasy regions the tilth-top soil was completely dry. Sufficient and optimal hydration of the tilth-top soil (21-30 mm and more productive moisture) was noted in the Transcarpathian, Chernivtsi, in some areas of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, in some areas of Vinnytsya, Volyn, Zhytomyr, Khmelnitsky, Donetsk, Luhansk and in the south of the Mykolayiv areas.
Depending on the timing of sowing, winter crops were in the phases of grain germination, seedling formation, 3 leaves, nodal roots and beginning of tillering. The state of the emerged plants is satisfactory. The formation of a leaf rosette continued in winter rape.