Very warm weather prevailed in Ukraine in the third ten-day period of October. At the beginning of the ten-day period, average daily air temperatures exceeded the norm by 5-10 °C reaching almost summer values of 10-14 °C. In the last days of the ten-day period, there was an intensive cooling to night frosts and average daily temperatures 2-7 °C below normal.
The average regional air temperature over the ten-day period was 2-4 °C higher than normal and amounted to 7.4-10.8 °C. The maximum air temperature increased to 17-22 °C, and up to 23-27 °С in the western (except Chernivtsi), Zhytomyr, Odessa and Zaporizhzhya regions. On the coldest nights at the end of the ten-day period, the minimum air temperature dropped to minus 1-6 °С, in the Transcarpathian, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Poltava and Luhansk regions – to minus 7-9°C.
No significant rains were observed during the ten-day period. The average regional rainfall (mainly due to fog and dew) ranged from 7 to 43% of the ten-daynorm (1-4 mm). In most districts of the Sumy, Vinnytsya, certain areas of Zhytomyr, Khmelnitsky, Ternopil, Transcarpathian, Odessa, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions it was completely dry.
As of October 31, the reserves of productive moisture of the tilth-top soil under winter crops in most sown areas were insufficient. In some areas of the Donetsk, Odessa, Mykolayiv and Cherkasy regions, the tilth-top soil was completely dry. Sufficient soil moisture was only in the Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, in most areas of the Transcarpathian, Lviv, Volyn and some areas of Zhytomyr, Sumy, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kirovograd, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolayiv, Kherson and Luhansk regions.
Depending on the timing of sowing, winter crops were in different phases of development: early sowing – in the phases of exploding of third leaf, the formation of nodal roots and tillering. In late sowing, germination of grain and the formation of stairs were noted. The condition of emerged plants was predominantly satisfactory unsatisfactory in the Cherkasy region. In winter rape, the formation of a leaf rosette continued. The condition of the plant was mostly good.