Articles | Volume 26, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-1889-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-1889-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
27 Apr 2026
Research article |
| 27 Apr 2026
| 27 Apr 2026
The deadliest sudden weather-related events in the Czech Lands, 1851–2025 CE
Rudolf Brázdil
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Kateřina Chromá
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Miloslav Müller
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Praha, Czech Republic
Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Charles University, Praha, Czech Republic
Jan Lhoták
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Department of Historical Sciences, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Plzeň, Czech Republic
Kateřina Skripniková
Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Praha, Czech Republic
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Narrative historical records of wine production in Central Europe date back to 1200. A study of taxes paid to authorities in the French-Luxembourg Moselle region, Germany, and the Swiss Plateau over the last few centuries shows that wine yields provide indirect indications of summer temperatures when the impact of heavy frosts is taken into account. This enables climate reconstructions based on tree rings to be refined and confirmed. Occasionally, poor harvests gave rise to witch hunts.
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We present a robust method for identification and classification of global land drought events (GLDEs) based on soil moisture. Two models were used to calculate soil moisture and delimit soil drought over global land from 1980–2022, with clusters of 775 and 630 GLDEs. Using four spatiotemporal and three motion-related characteristics, we categorized GLDEs into seven severity and seven dynamic categories. The frequency of GLDEs has generally increased in recent decades.
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Short summary
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Narrative historical records of wine production in Central Europe date back to 1200. A study of taxes paid to authorities in the French-Luxembourg Moselle region, Germany, and the Swiss Plateau over the last few centuries shows that wine yields provide indirect indications of summer temperatures when the impact of heavy frosts is taken into account. This enables climate reconstructions based on tree rings to be refined and confirmed. Occasionally, poor harvests gave rise to witch hunts.
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Clim. Past, 22, 49–71, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-49-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-49-2026, 2026
Short summary
Short summary
Documentary data about weather and climate are used to reconstruct temperature and precipitation patterns as well as hydrometeorological extremes in the Czech Lands for the 15th century. These data significantly complement existing knowledge of climatic patterns in Central Europe during this century and coincide well with other climate reconstructions from this area based on different proxies.
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Short summary
Short summary
The tax relief data connected with weather damage to farmers' yields from the Prácheň Region (southwestern Bohemia) in the period 1655–1827 were used to identify frequency, severity and impacts of damaging weather events presented in the context of other documentary data. Tax relief data used represent the very rarely used source of administrative records for historical-climatological research.
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Preprint archived
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We present a robust method for identification and classification of global land drought events (GLDEs) based on soil moisture. Two models were used to calculate soil moisture and delimit soil drought over global land from 1980–2022, with clusters of 775 and 630 GLDEs. Using four spatiotemporal and three motion-related characteristics, we categorized GLDEs into seven severity and seven dynamic categories. The frequency of GLDEs has generally increased in recent decades.
Rudolf Brázdil, Jan Lhoták, Kateřina Chromá, Dominik Collet, Petr Dobrovolný, and Heli Huhtamaa
Clim. Past, 21, 547–570, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-547-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-547-2025, 2025
Short summary
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Public granaries served as key infrastructure to improve food security in agrarian societies. Granary data from 15 domains at the Sušice region (southwestern Bohemia) in the period 1789–1849 CE are used here to identify years with bad and good grain harvests, which have been further analysed using documentary data and climatic reconstructions. The data used represent a new source of proxy data for historical–climatological research.
Rudolf Brázdil, Dominika Faturová, Monika Šulc Michalková, Jan Řehoř, Martin Caletka, and Pavel Zahradníček
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3663–3682, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3663-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3663-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Flash floods belong to natural hazards that can be enhanced in frequency, intensity, and impact during recent climate change. This paper presents a complex analysis of spatiotemporal variability and human impacts (including material damage and fatalities) of flash floods in the Czech Republic for the 2001–2023 period. The analysis generally shows no statistically significant trends in the characteristics analyzed.
Christian Pfister, Stefan Brönnimann, Andres Altwegg, Rudolf Brázdil, Laurent Litzenburger, Daniele Lorusso, and Thomas Pliemon
Clim. Past, 20, 1387–1399, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1387-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1387-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This bottle of Riesling from the traditional Bassermann Jordan winery in Deidesheim (Germany) is a relic of the premium wine harvested in 1811. It was named “Comet Wine” after the bright comet that year. The study shows that wine quality can be used to infer summer weather conditions over the past 600 years. After rainy summers with cold winds, wines turned sour, while long periods of high pressure led to excellent qualities. Since 1990, only good wines have been produced due to rapid warming.
Rudolf Brázdil, Jan Lhoták, Kateřina Chromá, and Petr Dobrovolný
Clim. Past, 20, 1017–1037, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1017-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1017-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The newly developed series of wheat, rye, barley, and oats prices from Sušice (southwestern Bohemia) for the period 1725–1824 CE is used to demonstrate effects of weather, climate, socio-economic, and societal factors on their fluctuations, with particular attention paid to years with extremely high prices. Cold spring temperatures and wet conditions from winter to summer were reflected in very high grain prices.
Rudolf Brázdil, Kateřina Chromá, and Pavel Zahradníček
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1437–1457, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1437-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1437-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The official mortality data in the Czech Republic in 1919–2022 are used to show long-term fluctuations in the number of fatalities caused by excessive natural cold and heat, lightning, natural disasters, and falls on ice/snow, as well as the sex and age of the deceased, based on certain meteorological, historical, and socioeconomic factors that strongly influence changes in the number and structure of such fatalities. Knowledge obtained is usable in risk management for the preservation of lives.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Christian Pfister, Katrin Kleemann, Kateřina Chromá, Péter Szabó, and Piotr Olinski
Clim. Past, 19, 1863–1890, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1863-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1863-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The Thirty Years' War (from 1618 to 1648 CE), an armed military conflict in Europe, brought extensive devastation to Europe. The paper analyses annual and seasonal temperature, precipitation, and drought patterns, as well as severe weather extremes, based particularly on documentary data, during this event in central Europe to demonstrate their broad impacts on human society and human responses in coincidence with weather and climate during this period of hardship.
Miloslav Müller, Marek Kašpar, and Vojtěch Bližňák
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-264, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-264, 2022
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Unlike other studies on wind-precipitation compound events, we used station data from all seasons and found a rather complex distribution of such events within Central Europe. Their frequency is maximal in the cold half-years at mountain stations in the west, because strong winds and heavy precipitation are associated with the same circulation pattern there. Towards the east, warm half-year compound events associated with thunderstorms start to predominate mainly in lowlands.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Zahradník, Péter Szabó, Kateřina Chromá, Petr Dobrovolný, Lukáš Dolák, Miroslav Trnka, Jan Řehoř, and Silvie Suchánková
Clim. Past, 18, 2155–2180, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2155-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2155-2022, 2022
Short summary
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Bark beetle outbreaks are important disturbances to Norway spruce forests. Their meteorological and climatological triggers are analysed for the main oubreaks over the territory of the Czech Republic based on newly created series of such outbreaks, covering the 1781–2021 CE period. The paper demonstrates the shift from windstorms as the main meteorological triggers of past outbreaks to effects of high temperatures and droughts together with windstorms in past decades.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Jiří Mikšovský, Petr Pišoft, Miroslav Trnka, Martin Možný, and Jan Balek
Clim. Past, 18, 935–959, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-935-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-935-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The paper deals with 520-year series (1501–2020 CE) of temperature, precipitation, and four drought indices reconstructed from documentary evidence and instrumental observations for the Czech Lands. Basic features of their fluctuations, long-term trends, and periodicities as well as attribution to changes in external forcings and climate variability modes are analysed. Representativeness of Czech reconstructions at European scale is evaluated. The paper shows extreme character of past decades.
Gerard van der Schrier, Richard P. Allan, Albert Ossó, Pedro M. Sousa, Hans Van de Vyver, Bert Van Schaeybroeck, Roberto Coscarelli, Angela A. Pasqua, Olga Petrucci, Mary Curley, Mirosław Mietus, Janusz Filipiak, Petr Štěpánek, Pavel Zahradníček, Rudolf Brázdil, Ladislava Řezníčková, Else J. M. van den Besselaar, Ricardo Trigo, and Enric Aguilar
Clim. Past, 17, 2201–2221, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2201-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2201-2021, 2021
Short summary
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The 1921 drought was the most severe drought to hit Europe since the start of the 20th century. Here the climatological description of the drought is coupled to an overview of its impacts, sourced from newspapers, and an analysis of its drivers. The area from Ireland to the Ukraine was affected but hardest hit was the triangle between Brussels, Paris and Lyon. The drought impacts lingered on until well into autumn and winter, affecting water supply and agriculture and livestock farming.
Rudolf Brázdil, Kateřina Chromá, Lukáš Dolák, Jan Řehoř, Ladislava Řezníčková, Pavel Zahradníček, and Petr Dobrovolný
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1355–1382, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1355-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1355-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We present an analysis of fatalities attributable to weather conditions in the Czech Republic during the 2000–2019 period based on our own database created from newspaper reports, on the database of the Czech Statistical Office, and on the database of the police of the Czech Republic as well as on their comparison. Despite some uncertainties, generally declining trends in the number of fatalities appear for the majority of weather variables. The structure of fatalities is described in detail.
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Brázdil, R., Dobrovolný, P., Elleder, L., Kakos, V., Kotyza, O., Květoň, V., Macková, J., Müller, M., Štekl, J., Tolasz, R., and Valášek, H.: Historické a současné povodně v České republice (Historical and Recent Floods in the Czech Republic), Masarykova univerzita, Český hydrometeorologický ústav, Brno, Praha, Czech Republic, 370 pp., ISBN 80-210-3864-0, 2005.
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Short summary
This paper presents the sudden weather-related events with the highest numbers of fatalities (≥ 20) over the territory of the Czech Lands (now the Czech Republic) in the 1851–2025 CE period, which were connected to or influenced by floods, windstorms, convective storms, thunderstorms, snow, and fog. For each of the 13 selected events, meteorological conditions, their course, accompanying circumstances, and selected fatality characteristics such as sex and age are described in detail.
This paper presents the sudden weather-related events with the highest numbers of fatalities (≥...
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