Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

WEATHER

Germany’s misty and frosty weekend in pictures

The warm weather was swept aside this weekend, bringing in chilly, clear skies and beautiful frost.

Published: 28 November 2016 15:51 CET
Germany's misty and frosty weekend in pictures
Frosts covered Germany on Monday morning. Photo: DPA

The unseasonably warm weather of last week, which saw a high of 22 degrees Celsius in Rosenheim, Bavaria on November 21st, came to an end over the weekend.

Although there was no new snow, temperatures dropped into single digits, ushering in heavy frosts.

The DWD (German Weather Service) correctly predicted the temperatures as “glühweintauglich” (mulled-wine-appropriate), conveniently coinciding with the first weekends of many Christmas markets across Germany.

Sunday also saw swathes of mist descending throughout the country. One Instagram user captured the New Town Hall in Hannover, shrouded in the mist.

 

A photo posted by @romek1959 (@romek1959) on Nov 27, 2016 at 5:26am PST

Instagram user Lars Hoffmann also snapped this misty shot of Bärenstein Castle in the East Ore Mountains (Osterzgebirge) in Saxony on Sunday.

Whilst in Bavaria, this photographer captured the light on the Bavarian Alps near Allgäu.

The cold spell continued into the new week, and Federico Gambarini photographed these two walkers in the frost near Cologne on Monday morning.

Photo: DPA

The subzero morning temperatures saw a frost across the country, here crystallising a leaf in a courtyard in the town of Sehnde, Lower Saxony.

Photo: DPA

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’; color: #454545}

Federico Gambarini also took advantage of the morning frost, capturing this frosted leaf and berry.

Photo: DPA

silvio2706 got out early to shoot the morning sunrise near Meiningen in Thuringia.

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’; color: #454545}

 

A photo posted by Silvio (@silvio2706) on Nov 28, 2016 at 3:00am PST

In the Alfter district of North Rhine-Westphalia, a few kilometres west of Bonn, people woke instead on Monday morning to a heavy mist and frost, captured here by Instagram user fuerstinsabine. 

 

A photo posted by @fuerstinsabine on Nov 28, 2016 at 3:21am PST

It was not crisp and dry in all of Germany, however. In Wismar, on the Baltic coast in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, strong winds caused floods, resulting in this junction being submerged in the harbour town.

Photo: DPA

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px ‘Helvetica Neue’; color: #454545}

The colder weather is set to continue through to the end of November.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS