Summer officially begins on Tuesday – and the weather is even sticking to it. Spring, on the other hand, wasn’t the real thing. And May fell into the water.
Offenbach (dpa) – For years, spring has always been too warm – spring 2021 has put an end to this series. There were also a number of other peculiarities, as the German Weather Service (DWD) reported on Monday in Offenbach.
The basis is the first evaluations of around 2000 DWD measuring stations. Summer officially begins on Tuesday. It doesn’t look bad for its start.
We deserve it, because the spring was much too cool with an average of 7.2 degrees according to the DWD. Depending on which comparison period you choose, the temperatures were 0.5 or 1.7 degrees below target. One is the internationally valid reference period 1961 to 1990, the other is the current – on average warmer – comparative period 1991 to 2020. Either way, spring 2021 marks a turning point, according to DWD: “This ended the series of too warm springs in Germany that had been going on since 2013 . “
That was especially the coldest April in 40 years. That was followed by a cool May. In March the temperatures were mainly in the elevator. There was only one summer interlude on Mother’s Day on May 9th: Waghäusel-Kirrlach, southwest of Heidelberg, had the hottest day of this spring, a whopping 31.3 degrees. The lowest temperature fell on April 6th in Meßstetten on the Swabian Alb, where minus 13.6 degrees were measured.
Even if it has rained almost continuously in the last few weeks: All in all, spring was too dry, and “for the eighth time in a row,” as the DWD reported. The target precipitation for the reference period (1961 to 1990) is 186 liters per square meter, in 2021 we only had around 175 liters. Compared with the period 1991 to 2020, however, the spring almost exactly reached its precipitation target of 171 liters.
Sankt Blasien-Menzenschwand in the southern Black Forest reported the highest daily volume in Germany with 76.7 liters on May 6th. Overall, most of the precipitation fell in the Black Forest and on the edge of the Alps. The season was considerably too dry, especially in the lee of the Harz, the Thuringian Basin and the Uckermark.
The sun shone from the sky for around 500 hours in spring 2021. The hours of sunshine thus just exceeded their target of 467 hours (period 1961 to 1990). Compared to 1991 to 2020, however, there was a small negative deviation. The sun was shining longest on the Baltic Sea island of Arkona and in the Lake Constance region, sometimes over 620 hours. It was the least sunny in East Friesland, the Teutoburg Forest and the Sauerland with less than 390 hours locally.
May, the preliminary evaluation of which the DWD also presented on Monday, was not only too cool, but also too dark and too wet. At 10.7 degrees, the average temperature was 1.4 degrees below the value for the reference period (1961 to 1990) and 2.4 degrees below the reference period (1991 to 2020). May also had a huge temperature range: From minus 4.5 degrees on May 3rd in Meßstetten on the Swabian Alb it rose to the aforementioned 31.3 within a few days.
After the particularly dry May 2020, May 2021 was particularly wet with around 95 liters per square meter; the mean for the period 1991 to 2020 is only 70 liters. Most of the precipitation fell in the southern Black Forest, Sankt Blasien-Menzenschwand reported the highest daily amount with 76.7 liters on the 6th. At the end of the month there was a lot of wind. In Borken-Weseke west of Münster, a tornado of strength F1 even developed for a short time on the 25th.
With all the rain, May had particularly little sun. At around 165 hours, the sunshine duration clearly missed its target of 202 hours (comparison period 1961 to 1990). Compared to 1991 to 2020, the negative deviation was even greater. The only exceptions were the Baltic island of Arkona and the east with sometimes more than 220 hours of sunlight.
After the mild spring, things look much better for June. “The high pressure will remain with us until the middle of the week,” promised meteorologist Jacqueline Kernn at the beginning of the week. Then “disturbances” spread to Germany and bring showers and thunderstorms again. “But it stays warm.” On Tuesday – the meteorological beginning of summer – the temperature in the west and south-west rises to a summery 26 degrees.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210531-99-806629 / 3
