Hungary has recorded its driest January-to-September period since systematic weather records began in 1901, according to the national meteorological service, HungaroMet Zrt. The figures were distributed by the state news agency MTI and carried by Hungary Today.
Precipitation across the country over the first nine months of the year totalled 251.7 millimetres, 47 per cent below the 1991-2020 average of 471.1 millimetres.
September extended the drought rather than breaking it. The month brought an average of 15.1 millimetres of rain against a normal 59.1 millimetres, and ranks as the seventh driest September in the record.
It was also mild. The average temperature was 17.7C, 1.7 degrees above the 1991-2020 reference figure of 16.0C, with lowland readings generally between 17C and 19C and values below 15C in higher mountain areas and in pronounced frost pockets.
The shortfall is unevenly spread. Monthly rainfall in parts of the Great Hungarian Plain fell below 10 millimetres in September. Stations in western Transdanubia did better, although even there the 30-millimetre mark was passed only locally, including in the Orseg region.
Across large parts of the country, nature and agriculture now face a water deficit of 200 to 300 millimetres against the long-term average. Central Hungary and the Great Hungarian Plain recorded cumulative totals of under 200 millimetres over the nine months across vast areas, while totals above 400 millimetres were measured only at isolated stations near the south-western border.
Mountain regions have not escaped. In some areas precipitation ran more than 300 millimetres below normal, putting additional pressure on groundwater replenishment and river levels.
HungaroMet describes the September drought not as an isolated event but as the latest peak in a rainfall deficit accumulated over several months.
The two rankings in that report sit awkwardly together, and the awkwardness is the interesting part. The nine months are the driest in more than 120 years. The month that completed them is the seventh driest of its kind.
Taken literally, this is a national record assembled entirely out of months that did not break one. No individual month was exceptional. The sequence of them was.
This newspaper has looked for the month responsible and finds none available for the role. Each one, examined on its own, can point to six drier examples of itself and be excused.
Our analysts note the effect on accountability. Any single month can be ranked against its own history, and this September placed seventh. The driest nine months in more than a century were therefore delivered by months that individually placed nowhere near first.
The Department of Unnecessary Research has filed the only conclusion the arithmetic supports. The drought is not in the weather. It is in the addition.