Sunny and hot: Very warm air and record temperatures make Germany sizzle. Not even at night is there a chance to cool down in many places. The forests suffer from this – and so do the birds.
Berlin / Offenbach (dpa) – Although the calendar summer will officially only begin in a few days, Germany is already experiencing the first heat wave with well over 30 degrees.
There is hardly any cooling in sight until Friday. Then it can lightning and thunder, especially in the west, from the afternoon even more violently, as the German Weather Service (DWD) in Offenbach predicted.
On Thursday, for example, the hottest day of the year peaked in Lower Saxony. “Over 35, 36 degrees are common in large parts of the country,” said a DWD spokeswoman at noon. In North Rhine-Westphalia, temperatures of 34 degrees were measured on the hottest day of the year to date – they were reached in Münster and Cologne. A DWD expert expected maximum daily temperatures of around 36 degrees in the afternoon. For comparison: The highest temperature ever recorded in a June in North Rhine-Westphalia was 37.9 degrees – on June 27, 1947 at stations in Cologne and Königswinter.
Temperatures of up to 36 degrees were also expected in Brandenburg. The meteorologists expected the hottest June 17th since the beginning of the weather records in the region. In terms of calendar, summer begins on Monday (June 21).
Hot days, tropical nights
Very warm air from the Mediterranean area had previously made the west and south-west in particular sweat. According to the DWD, it was warmest on Wednesday with 33.9 degrees near Speyer, in the village of Waghäusel-Kirrlach.
In many places, not even the evening brought any cooling, Germany experienced the first tropical night from Wednesday to Thursday. Meteorologists speak of tropical nights when temperatures do not drop below 20 degrees even at night. The highest nighttime low temperature was therefore in Bad Lippspringe in North Rhine-Westphalia. At no point did it get colder than 22.0 degrees there. In Gevelsberg (also North Rhine-Westphalia) the temperature minimum was 21.5 degrees. At 21.4 degrees, Bremerhaven was third on the nightly temperature list.
According to the information, it was “around 20 degrees” above all in the Ruhr area, but also on the Saar and in the Cologne / Bonn region. The meteorologists assume that the night of Friday will again be a tropical night. On Thursday, isolated thunderstorms with storms, hail and heavy rain were expected in the west and north-west until evening.
According to the DWD, showers and thunderstorms are to be expected again on Friday. There are also local heat thunderstorms in the Alps. In the east, on the other hand, the sun shines unhindered by the bright blue sky. It gets hot between 27 and 37 degrees. Otherwise it remains summery and dry. The heat hotspot is then again in the east of the country, with up to 37 degrees.
Thunderstorm on the weekend
The weekend starts sunny except in the northwest, during the day the east and again the south have to be prepared for sometimes violent thunderstorms. In the northwest it is cooler on Saturday with 24 to 28 degrees, otherwise it will be hot again with up to 37 degrees in the east. Sunday has hot temperatures of 27 to 36 degrees, with strong thunderstorms starting the day in the west and northwest, as the DWD announced. During the day there is a threat of heavy thunderstorms with heavy rain, hail and sometimes hurricane gusts, only the east and north are expected to be spared.
In line with the summer temperatures, the big school holidays in Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Berlin will start next week, with Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria starting last at the end of July. It should then be full again on the streets. “Car trips are on the upswing, and the trend towards vacationing in one’s own country is continuing this summer,” reported Europe’s largest tourism group TUI.
There is a risk of forest fires
Is there a threat of a “super-traffic jam summer” on German autobahns? No, says ADAC spokesman Andreas Hölzel in Munich. Considerable tourist traffic is to be expected on the motorways and holiday routes in Germany, but “we don’t see a” super-traffic jam summer “because of this”. The intensive tourist traffic does not begin until mid-July.
The risk of forest fires is also increasing in many places. That is why Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, for example, rely on the use of two small aircraft for the early detection of fires. The Cessnas, manned by a pilot, an observer and a forester, should fly their routes in some areas from Thursday and look out for smoke, said Thomas Friedhoff, a consultant for the Lower Saxony fire brigade service.
The current heat wave is also affecting the birds: The Nature Conservation Union Germany (Nabu) calls for bird baths to be set up, especially in cities, to provide water for the animals. “City birds quickly suffer from a lack of water,” says the managing director of Nabu Bremen, Sönke Hofmann. Many smaller water points such as puddles have already dried up, and there is little water in trenches either.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210617-99-28277 / 5
