The rain in Spain isn't falling on the plain

As reported by Politico:

It’s barely spring, and Europe is running dry. 

A key reservoir serving millions of Catalans is dwindling away. A conflict over water triggered clashes in France, where several villages can no longer provide their residents with tap water. And Italy’s largest river is already running as low as last June. 

More than a quarter of the Continent is in drought as of April, and many countries are bracing for a repeat — or worse — of last year’s bone-dry summer. 

A study using satellite data confirmed earlier this year that Europe has been suffering from severe drought since 2018. Rising temperatures are making it difficult to recover from this deficit, leaving the Continent stuck in a dangerous cycle where water becomes ever more precarious. ..

France, where no rain fell for more than 30 consecutive days in January and February, experienced its driest winter in 60 years. 

Italy’s CIMA research foundation found a 64 percent reduction in snowfall by mid-April. The River Po runs as low as it did last summer; Lake Garda is already at less than half its average level...

For Europe to break out of the vicious cycle of starting each year with a major groundwater deficit, “we would need almost a decade of precipitation-heavy years,” Hattermann warned...

More gloomy details at the link, including the political infighting implications.  A Bloomberg article discusses some of the financial aspects:

In mid-April, the Coordinator of Farmers’ and Ranchers’ Organizations (COAG), Spain’s main agricultural association, released a report warning that the dry period is causing “irreversible losses” to more than 3.5 million hectares of crops. The report makes for apocalyptic reading: Water reserves are extremely low and crops in some regions will be completely lost unless it starts raining. In Murcia, sometimes described as the “vegetable garden of Europe,” the drought is destroying cereal crops and livestock has been abandoned. Farmers in Andalucia have decided to stop planting industrial tomatoes and other vegetables, with winter crops such as garlic and onions at risk. That is all of grave concern: Spain produced about 25% of the European Union’s fresh vegetables in 2021.

We’re already feeling the consequences of heatflation. Spain grows 63% of the olives that wind up in cooking oil in the EU. Consumer prices have already surged by 27% over the last year. With olive trees suffering from prolonged heat stress, there’s a strong possibility that supplies will be hit even harder this year. Prices aren’t coming down any time soon.

I would welcome first-person comments from European readers of this blog.

Addendum: 

"A view shows the dry bed of the Llosas del Cavall reservoir, as the water supply has dropped to its lowest level since 1990, because of extreme drought, in the village of Sant Llorenc de Morunys, Spain, on May 5, 2023."