Through the next 5 days, the Black Sea region including Ukraine is exceptionally warm although flipping much cooler as a cold front arrives during the 6-10-day period when the 32F<0C line shifts south almost reaching Ukraine and Southwest Russia crop areas.

The recent cold wave across Southeast Europe to Turkey was caused by a polar vortex generation likely related to stratospheric warming in the polar region of the past 6 weeks. Another intense trough spins out of that regime and brings heavy rain to Southwest and South Europe through the next 10 days.

A late season cold wave has produced significant crop damage to the Eastern Europe/Black Sea/Turkey/Southwest Russia region. The farthest east cold spike was April 10-11 causing the worst freeze since 2014 in Turkey. The peak cold during April 7-9 was across Romania and Ukraine. Coldest mornings during the freeze events were in the -10’sC!

Comparing the CIC-CA summer 2025 outlook and the NOAA/CPC probabilistic summer 2025 outlook to establish confidence indicates a high probability of hot to very hot summer climate in the West, heavy rains in the Southeast, and a North-central to Interior Northwest U.S. drought.