“Since records began it has never been so cold at the end of March in Brandenburg,” said Eva Wille from the German weather service (DWD).
At -19 degrees Celsius, Coschen in Brandenburg was the coldest spot in the country on Saturday night, with temperatures in the outskirts of Berlin also dipping to a record-breaking -17.
Further records were broken in the Harz mountains, with -17 recorded on Brocken mountain, the coldest spring temperature there in over five decades.
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The arctic weather system currently gripping Germany caused temperatures dip to minus double digits elsewhere over the weekend, including in Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia in the east of the country.
Meanwhile, determined bathers in North Rhine-Westphalia ignored the extreme conditions on Saturday to take their first dips in open air swimming pools, despite outside temperatures of minus seven degrees.
“The first bather went into the water wearing a woolly hat,” said a spokesman from a heated open air pool in the Münsterland region.
Relief is on its way, however, with meteorologists predicting the worst of the record-breaking cold snap is now over. The current permafrost is set to thaw out by the Easter weekend, said Christoph Hartmann from DWD.
DPA/The Local/jlb
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