Weather in Germany: "Summer of disasters" on the way? – Meteorologist becomes clear

Extreme summers with heat and drought are no longer rare in Germany. So far, however, the weather has been mixed. An expert dares to forecast for 2021.

Offenbach – The summers in Germany are getting hotter and hotter. In the past few years the weather * was often too warm. Heat waves increased and made people sweat, and the drought was also a problem for nature. Experts are also concerned about the trend for 2021. Is another “disaster” summer looming?

The best time of the year has often been torture in the past. In the summer of 2019, heat records were broken across Germany. In general, the three hottest summers * in measurement history, according to the German Weather Service (DWD) * based in Offenbach, were all in the 2000s. In the balance sheet, the summer of 2019 was the third hottest in Germany since records began around 140 years ago. It was only hotter in 2003 with an average temperature of 19.7 degrees Celsius * and 2018 was also clearly too warm.

Weather in Germany: horror forecast for summer 2021? Trend is worrying

In the summer of 2020, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and the private US weather service Accuweather warned of a “disaster” summer with drastic effects on nature. At first it didn’t look like it, according to the DWD it was quite changeable. But “in August, midsummer turned up at full speed,” the authorities say. There was a prolonged heat wave. The fact is: the weather extremes are increasing. The prospects for summer 2021 are not good. Is there another threat of heat waves and temperatures above 40 degrees in June, July and August that will paralyze the country?

The fear of a hot summer in 2021 is definitely great, but what do the long-term forecasts say? The American CFS model from the US weather agency NOAA shows temperatures for the summer that are slightly above average. The trend for the weather shows that it could be 0.5 to 1 degree too warm in Germany. According to graduate meteorologist Dominik Jung from the weather portal wetter.net, a hot summer cannot be deduced from this, but there is a “but”.

Weather in summer in Germany: is it getting hot again? One point could become a problem

“Of course there can be phases with 30 degrees and more,” says Jung. Crunchy heat waves, over a few days at a time, are definitely possible from June to August. Calculated over the entire summer, Germany currently expects “moderate warmth” and no extreme weather. So can nature and farmers in particular breathe a sigh of relief?

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Wet weather with sufficient rainfall in summer 2021 would definitely be desirable. However, the trend is rather bad. In the south and northwest of Germany it could be too dry again. In the rest of the country, however, precipitation amounts corresponding to the climate mean are expected. “The drought in particular could become a problem,” says Jung. Because March and April were already too dry.

Weather in Germany: is a hot summer looming? “Everything is possible”

So the summer of 2021 does not look like a hot summer on the whole. However, individual heat phases cannot be ruled out. It is not yet possible to say with certainty whether and when these will hit Germany. Much can change with the weather. It could also happen that the weather stays rather cool one month and then the heat hits completely in the next, as it did in summer 2020. “Everything is possible,” says Jung.

In the long run, however, the weather in Germany will cause concern. The many weather records in the past do not paint a good picture. “With emissions of greenhouse gases unchanged worldwide, summers, which are extremely hot for us today, will be the norm at the end of the century,” says a DWD report from 2020. The year 2021 could also be too warm. One expert has already spoken of a “shock prognosis”. (svw) * op-online.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

List of rubric lists: © Thomas Warnack / dpa