The meteorological drought situation increased in December in the southern region, particularly in the districts of Beja, Faro and Setúbal in the moderate drought class, according to the climatological bulletin of the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA).
On December 31, 38% of the territory was in meteorological drought, while at the end of November this percentage was 19,4%.
According to IPMA, there was an increase in the area of mainland Portugal in the weak drought class, from 19,4% in November to 21,4% in December and also an increase in the light rain class from 7,2% to 17,1 ,XNUMX%.
At the end of last month, 19,5% of the territory was in the moderate rain class, 16,8% normal, 16,2 in moderate drought and 9% in severe rain.
The institute classifies the drought meteorological index into nine classes, which vary between “extreme rain” and “extreme drought”.
According to the IPMA, there are four types of drought: meteorological, agricultural, hydrological and socioeconomic.
With regard to the percentage of water in the soil, the institute states that there was an increase in the northern and central regions with values above 80%.
In Baixo Alentejo and Algarve, some regions had values between 20 and 40%.
Data from the bulletin indicate that last month was classified as normal in terms of air temperature and very dry in terms of precipitation, having been the 7th driest December since 2000.
Due to the drought situation, this Wednesday, January 17th, the Government announced 46 measures to prevent the Algarve from reaching the end of the year without water.
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