The Netherlands 20 percent drier than normal

In the Netherlands it is currently 20% drier than normal. That equates to a water shortage of tens of liters per square metre. That calculated space technology company VanderSat, which provides near real-time high-resolution data about soil moisture.

This is one of the worst droughts in the Netherlands in the past 15 years. "It was also quite dry in 2003, but this year takes the cake," said Richard de Jeu, founder and CTO of VanderSat, which measured the first centimeters of the bottom for this.

Strongest drought in the east of the Netherlands 
He compared the data from the past few weeks with the same period over the past 15 years. "The images clearly show a drought distribution based on soil moisture. The current drought is strongest in the east of our country and it differs enormously from the situation we had a year earlier, when a large part of the Netherlands was ravaged by huge downpours. ."

The soil moisture in the Netherlands in the first 3 weeks of June

Or the drought to rival that of 1976 cannot be extracted from the space tech data. This is because these have not been available in this quality for that long. However, KNMI maps show that the current weather situation is in line with 1976. There is a current precipitation deficit of 150 millimeters. This means that 2017 is one of the 5% of driest years.

The precipitation deficit in the Netherlands over the past few months.

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