Again and again there were storms with heavy and extreme rain. The temperature was also often above average. The German Weather Service today presents the preliminary weather report for July.
Offenbach – The German Weather Service (DWD) presented its preliminary balance sheet for July this Friday. In the past few days it has already become apparent that the month will once again be too warm compared to the average of the comparison period.
The monthly average temperature could be around one degree above this value. In the case of sunshine, however, the month should have been rather average.
Significantly too wet
Certainly not surprising is the statement that July was clearly too wet and that the rainfall probably reached around 140 percent of its target value. Again and again there were storms with heavy and extreme rain, up to the enormous amounts of precipitation that triggered the flood disaster in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia in the middle of the month.
The previous rainfall could have played its part, because in the weeks before it had rained heavily again and again. According to the DWD climatologists, the soils in Rhineland-Palatinate and South Westphalia could hardly take up any water in the region – there were sometimes less than ten millimeters of free soil water storage.
Record of heavy rain events?
Even if no Germany-wide all-time records were set for the precipitation before the catastrophe, according to a report by climatologists, previous records were far exceeded at an unusually large number of stations in the west. Within a few hours or days, an average of 1.5 to 2 times the average precipitation in July was achieved over entire river basins in relation to the reference period 1991 to 2020. At the time of the report last week, it was already clear that 2021 would be among the five with the most heavy rain events. dpa
