January 16-18: “Friederike” Strongest Winter Storm In Germany Since Kyrill

After a calm but grey weekend and a calm Monday, the wind freshened up on Tuesday, January 16. On Tuesday morning there was a turbulent sky with fast moving clouds in Southern Germany. There was rain in the afternoon. But on the next day with the public in the wake of Winterstorm Friederike, which was announced to arrive on Thursday, weather in many parts of Germany was getting extreme. Already in the night, there had been accidents due to winter-thunderstorms.

In Bavaria, Wednesday morning started still relatively calm but in Southern Bavaria around the lakes and in the South-West it was already day when it looked like the night would fall again at 8.00am in the morning.

Suddenly it became darker and darker. A snowstorm set in and there was lightning and thunder. Within minutes a lot of snow fell and streets became slippery. There was also hail. After ten in the morning the sky cleared up, even the sun was shining shortly but it was a day with many more showers. It was windy all the day.

 

There was a bit more snow in the night. In the morning it felt warmer. Then, on Thursday, the wind was picking up speed. Storm-warnings were issued before. Weather models did still slightly differ on Thursday morning but the storm hit mostly the middle of Germany as expected. But also in Southern-Germany, there were really strong winds.

Friederike was soon suspected to be the strongest winter storm since Kyrill which was exactly the same day, on an Eighteen January. Indeed, the storm already caused many accidents and did damage even before it crossed over Germany.

In the early afternoon, there were still different forecasts if the storm would increase in the early evening hours or if the weather would calm down. Many schools were closed for the afternoon, Flights from Munich got canceled, trains were delayed. In the late afternoon, Deutsche Bahn shut down its long-distance travel.

At 4.30pm, Januar 18, the sky is mostly clear, but the wind is still very strong. Most of the snow is molten away and a brook is running down the street.

The aftermath: As the weather calmed down in the night, the news showed the colossal damage which Friederike did. Due to its extreme wind speeds, it made it into the top five of monstrous windstorms in Europe over the last 30 years.

By Peter Engelmann




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SHEET LIGHTNING: VIDEO BERLIN, AUGUST 28, 2016

Summer 2016 in Middle Europe: another year with new temperature records. August 28 was an extremely hot day in Berlin with temperatures over 34 C. Already the day before there had been some severe thunderstorms in Western Germany. A cold front was coming in from the west and in the afternoon the German Weather Service issued a warning for severe weather with strong wind gusts, thunderstorms and hail for Berlin and Brandenburg. However following nowcasts as provided by from some webpages showed that weather was very unpredictable that Sunday in Eastern Germany. It looked a couple of times as there were stronger thunderstorms taking course towards the East, then they lost their energy but in the evening some stronger storms appeared suddenly. Before the front arrived in Berlin the air became really hot and humid. It was sticky and the sky became overcast. In the south of Brandenburg there was already a strong thunderstorm. It was the typical scenario when you expect the worst. You could feel the tension.

Nevertheless there wasn’t a strong hit in Berlin, but a visually impressing storm system in the East of the City which generated sheet-lightning in the West. It was already nearly dark when that storm approached. Later, in the west side of the city there was only rainfall for some minutes. In other parts of Germany there were serious damages due to the collision between warm and cold air. There was a rotating supercell causing flooding in Hamburg and another storm did damage for example in Stendal. Lightning stopped trains in Hannover. The next day temperatures had dropped dramatically. In some places there was a temperature fall of 15 degrees. It was a release after these unusual hot days end of August. The learning lesson was that precise now-casts are still a difficult thing to do when there is chaos in the atmosphere, but should definitely further developed and made more popular since they could be a life-saving tool. Furthermore the trend of climate change related extremes continues in 2016. Adaption strategies seem mandatory for example for farming which suffered both from flooding and too much heat and droughts in other areas. It would be also worth to further investigate the connections between extreme weather and traffic accidents. Perhaps it’s a coincidence but there had been some accidents already before the thunderstorms arrived that day. Maybe the tension in the air, the humidity and the heat strongly affects the concentration of drivers. The situation in Berlin was worth for a little experiment with slow motion and an editing which created an effect similar to a time-lapse on the other side. Together with cross-dissolve transitions the video has perhaps a bit of a supernatural air:

Thunderstorm, Berlin 28. August 2016 from Peter Engelmann on Vimeo.

Aftermath of a severe storm in Chorin-Forest, Brandenburg / Extreme Sturmfolgen in einem Wald bei Chorin

The severe thunderstorm which was reported in the post from August 20 left an incredible path of destruction near the Chorin cloister in Brandenburg. The pathway, which is used often by hikers and which leads to the village Brodowin was closed for some time.  The amazing thing is that the Chorin forest is a very natural forest with many old trees and there were no signs of weakness before. There must have been tremendous forces at work on August 20, 2012. The images show how serious we should take severe storm warnings:   Ein extremes Gewitter nördlich von Berlin, über das im post vom 20. August berichtet wurde, hat in einem Wald in der Nähe des Kloster Chorin, 80 km nordöstlich von Berlin, unglaubliche Schäden hinterlassen. Der beliebte Wanderweg musste geschlossen werden. Das Überraschende an diesen Zerstörungen ist, dass hier ein sehr natürlicher Wald mit alten Bäumen, die keine erkennbaren Schwächen hatten,  derart zerstört wurde. Es müssen unglaubliche Kräfte an diesem 20. August am Werk gewesen sein. Die Bilder dokumentieren, wie ernst wir Sturmwarnungen nehmen sollten.     Trees intermingled, a whole forest turned upside down: What kind of force could have done this? August 19, 2012 was already one of the hottest days of the year in the Berlin-Brandenburg area and in Germany. Monday got even hotter and air was increasingly humid. Showers and thunderstorms were predicted by weather forecasters for monday evening. “Xenia” a depression over middle Europe transported the warm, humid air. The severe storm around Chorin and Eberswalde however began already in the afternoon. The whole capacity of the firebrigade in the area was needed and had to repair a lot of damage with special equipment. However the extreme destruction as seen in the Chorin Forest was restricted to a small path. Experts suspect that a tornado did these damages.     Ineinander gewickelte Bäume, ein Anblick, der Fragen lässt, was für eine Kraft hier am Werk war: das Chaos machte den Wald zu einem gefährlichen Platz. Bereits der 19. August war in Berlin Brandenburg einer der heißesten Tage ebenso wie in Deutschland. Hitze und Freuchtigkeit steigerten sich noch am Montag. Schauer und Gewitter waren für den Abend vorhergesagt. Tief Xenia über Mitteleuropa schaufelte die feuchte und heiße Luft in diese Breiten.  Das Unwetter über Chorin und Eberswalde nahm jedoch bereits am Nachmittag seinen Anfang. Die gesamten verfügbaren Kräfte der Feuerwehren waren mit speziellen Gerät an diesem Tag im Einsatz um die zahlreichen Unwetterschäden zu beseitigen. Jedoch war die extreme Zerstörung im Choriner Wald in  einem scharf begrenzten Raum geschehen. Experten vermuten einen Tornado. There were reports from a village near the Werbellinsee, Althüttendorf, about severe storm damage which support the theory of a tornado. Mostly the real apocalyptic impressions and the way trees were knocked down gives the theory of a tornado some credibility. Furthermore it is interesting that the most damage occurred on top of the hills near the cloister, which is called the “Choriner Endmoränenbogen” due to its origin from the ice-age. Obviously any kind of structure on the ground could influence developments in the lower atmosphere.

 

Aus Althüttendorf, einem Dorf in der Nähe des bekannten Werbellinsees sind von diesem Tag Sturmschäden gemeldet worden, die die Theorie eines Tornados stützen. Hauptsächlich sind es aber die geradezu apokalyptischen Eindrücke und die Art und Weise wie die Bäume zu Boden gedrückt wurden, die auf einen Tornado hindeuten. Darüber hinaus ist es interessant, dass die meisten Schäden auf der Anhöhe des Choriner Endmoränenbogens in der Nähe des Klosters zu sehen sind, einer in der letzten Eiszeit entstandenen Erhebung. Offenbar wirkt sich jede Art von strukturiertem Untergrund auf das Geschehen in der unteren Atmosphäre aus.