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Hurricane Xaver – floods give way to heavy snow

UPDATE: Germany was still reeling on Friday from hurricane Xaver as blizzards and winds hit the country. But the floods are making way for snow and eventually warmer temperatures, forecasters said.

Published: 6 December 2013 13:34 CET
Hurricane Xaver - floods give way to heavy snow
Traffic struggling through the snow in North Rhine-Westphalia on Friday morning and a flooded train station in Emden. Photo: DPA

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With blasts of 180 km/h along the North and Baltic coast, Xaver hit Germany with force on Thursday and the bad weather continued into Friday. Travel was severely disrupted, while schools and Christmas markets were shut.

The storm is making its way east and the worst has passed Germany, but Xaver has brought cold Arctic weather with it, leading to snowfall across the country, weather service DWD said on Friday.  

Mountain areas can expect five to 10 centimetres of snow and with strong winds, snow drifts are also expected.

On Friday night more snow is set to fall in the east, but temperatures should get warmer in the west, although there will also be more rain.  

On Sunday a warmer front should reach Germany, according to forecasters. Monday will be rainy but mild, DWD said.

In northern Germany, the Elbe River harbour of Hamburg was under six metres of water on Thursday night, the highest in about a decade, leaving only the tops of lamp posts sticking out of the freezing waters.

A fallen tree also derailed a suburban commuter train in Hamburg which hit a bridge. The fire brigade had to free six passengers from the train, one with minor injuries.

In snowy Berlin, hefty winds brought down the 13-metre-tall Christmas tree outside the residence of President Joachim Gauck.

Children were allowed to stay away from school, and Christmas markets battened down their hatches.

Still, German authorities said the worst had been averted, and damage was nowhere near that of severe floods in 1962 that left 340 people dead.

"Tonight Germany held its breath and looked at the dykes, and they withstood" the high seas, said the environment minister of the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, Robert Habeck.

"We had very early warning and were quite ready for it," said Christian Herold from DWD. "We are much better prepared today" than in 1962, he said.

Trains to the city from Hannover were still down on Friday as was much of the public transport network. The states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony also had very limited trains running. Many flights were also cancelled.

CLICK HERE for photos of the storm

On the Baltic coast, the Mecklenburg Western-Pomeranian city of Stralsund saw a roof blow off a supermarket causing damage of €400,000 but no-one was injured. Nearby Rostock and Greifswald universities cancelled lectures.

Around 2,000 firemen were on standby in Schleswig-Holstein, which on Friday morning was still awaiting a possible storm tide.

READ MORE: Hurricane Xaver hits northern Germany 

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Record heat deaths and floods: How Germany is being hit by climate change

Germany was further confronted with extreme weather conditions and their consequences last year. With this summer likely to break records again, a new report shows the impact climate change is having.

Published: 22 April 2024 11:28 CEST
Record heat deaths and floods: How Germany is being hit by climate change

In 2023, more days of extremely high temperatures were recorded than at any time since records began, the European climate change service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) wrote in a joint report published on Monday. 

The records go back to 1940 and sometimes even further.

“2023 has been a complex and multifaceted year in terms of climate hazards in Europe,” said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Director Carlo Buontempo. “We have witnessed widespread flooding, but also extreme forest fires with high temperatures and severe droughts.” 

These events have put a strain on natural ecosystems, and have also challenged agriculture, water management and public health.

According to the report, around 1.6 million people were affected by floods last year, and more than half a million people were affected by storms. The weather- and climate-related damage is estimated at well over 10 billion euros. “Unfortunately, these numbers are unlikely to decrease in the near future,” Buontempo said, referring to ongoing human-caused climate change.

Heat turns deadly, even in Germany

Averaged across Europe, 11 months of above-average warmth were recorded last year, with September being the warmest since records began in 1940. 

A record number of days with so-called extreme heat stress, i.e. perceived temperatures of over 46C, was also registered. 

As a result of higher temperatures, the number of heat-related deaths has risen by an average of 30 percent over the past 20 years.

According to the Robert Koch Institute, at least 3,100 deaths in Germany were linked to heat in the first nine months of 2023.

“In some cases, for example heat stroke, heat exposure leads directly to death, while in most cases it is the combination of heat exposure and pre-existing conditions that leads to death,” RKI explained in a statement, adding that women tend to be affected more than men due to higher proportion of women in older age groups.

In Germany temperatures above 30C are considered a heatwave. As weather patterns change due to human-caused climate change, heat waves have increased in number and length.

READ ALSO: How German cities are adapting to rising temperatures

Historically Germany hasn’t faced so many severe heatwaves each year, and central air conditioning is not commonly found in the country. In cities across the Bundesrepublik, heat plans are being drafted and refined to try and prepare for further extreme heat events in the near future.

Delivery van stuck in flood

A delivery van stranded in flood water during a storm surge near the fish market in Hamburg last winter. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Bodo Marks
 

Warming oceans and mountains and more rain

On average, the seas around Europe’s coasts were warmer than at any time since at least 1980. 

READ ALSO: Colder winters and refugees – How changing ocean currents could impact Germany

It was also much too warm on the glaciers in 2023. “After the record ice loss in 2022, it was another exceptional year of loss in the Alps,” Copernicus and WMO wrote. In these two years, the glaciers in the Alps lost around 10 percent of their volume.

Interestingly, the excess meltwater may be boosting hydroelectricity production in the short term. According to the report, conditions for the production of green electricity in 2023 were very favourable, with its share of the total electricity mix at 43 percent, the highest seen so far.

Overall, seven percent more rain fell last year than average. It was one of the wettest years on record, the report said. 

In one third of the river network in Europe, water volumes have been recorded that exceeded the flood threshold. There were severe floods in Italy and Greece, among other places, and parts of northern Germany were affected at the end of the year.

Hamburg and the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein were among regions hardest hit by floods in Germany last year. Northern sections of the Elbe river rose high enough to submerge Hamburg’s fish market several times among other places.

READ ALSO: Germany hit by floods as October heat turns into icy spell

2024 likely to continue breaking heat records

The recent report by Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization is in agreement with a UN report published last month, which noted that last year came at the end of “the warmest 10-year period on record” according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

“There is a high probability that 2024 will again break the record of 2023”, WMO climate monitoring chief Omar Baddour said, according to Science Alert.

Another year of record breaking high temperatures means Germany can likely expect more and longer heatwaves in the late spring, summer and early autumn seasons. Higher average temperatures are also correlated with an increase in extreme weather events like extreme storms and floods in parts of the country.

In drier parts of Europe it means an increase in droughts and wildfires.

With reporting by DPA.

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