During the last ten-day period of summer 2020, the weather in Ukraine was heterogeneous. In the northern, north-eastern and western regions with the movement of atmospheric fronts, dry hot weather in the middle of the ten-day period was replaced by rain, and in some areas of these areas it was significant. The cool air mass caused a gradual decrease in temperature by 6-8 °C, but in the last days of August there was again an increase in air temperature to 28-32°C. In the southern, eastern and central regions it was mostly hot and dry. Only in some areas of these regions did the rains fall mainly in the form of heavy rains.
The average regional ten-day air temperature was 2.3-5.2°C above normal and ranged from 19.2°C in the north to plus 23.5°C in the south. The maximum air temperature reached 33-37°C.
Precipitation of various intensities was observed for 1-6 days. In the southern, Donetsk, Kirovohrad regions, some districts of the Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Poltava, Vynnytsya, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattya regions there was no precipitation or the amount did not exceed 1-6 mm (8-45% of normal). In the Luhansk, Kharkiv, Poltava and Cherkasy regions, the average rainfall was 42-57% of the norm (8-10 mm). In the Kyiv, Rivne, Ternopil and Volyn regions, the ten-day amount of precipitation ranged from 123 to 300% (from 27 to 45 mm). In the rest of the country the amount of precipitation was close to or less than normal (14-34 mm).
Precipitation in the western, northern and north-eastern regions stopped the long rainless period, softened the conditions for the end of the vegetation of late crops, helped replenish the topsoil, created satisfactory conditions for preparing the soil for sowing winter cereals and contributed to the development of 2021 winter oilseed rape sown in the second half of August or early sowing of this crop. However, moisture reserves were replenished in accordance with the amount of precipitation on August 24-28. And the amount of precipitation varied from significant to small. In the rest of the territory continued air-soil drought. The duration of the period without effective rains for two months (July-August ) reached 45-55 days.
At the end of August, according to expert estimates and actually determined reserves of moisture in the soil, the drought covered about 50% of the area intended for sowing winter crops 2021.