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FLOODS

Germany battered by storms in wettest year on record

Thunderstorms brought severe rain and flooding to parts of Germany on Sunday. The German Weather Service says the country has had its wettest twelve-month period since measurements began.

Published: 22 July 2024 10:30 CEST
wet dining table
Raindrops fall on a wooden table in an outdoor restaurant in Cologne. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Reichwein

Parts of Germany were affected by deadly thunderstorms and severe rainfall on Sunday night.

At least one person has died and several others were injured by lightning strikes. Elsewhere heavy rain flooded cellars and streets and downed trees. 

The German Weather Service (DWD) lifted all severe weather warnings during the night, but new thunderstorms in the southeast, east and northeast are expected in the course of the day on Monday. 

This latest storm comes at the end of a exceptionally wet 12 month period which has seen a high number of thunderstorms and flood events across the country.

Deadly lightning strikes and severe storms on Sunday night

According to police, an 18-year-old died on the Zugspitze after a lightning strike. He had travelled with two other men from North Rhine-Westphalia. 

Lightning struck near the summit several times while he was making the 80 metre walk from the summit to the mountain station. 

The man was fatally injured. A rescue helicopter could not immediately be dispatched due to the storm.

Lightning also struck a park in Delmenhorst, Lower Saxony, on Sunday, injuring eight members of a family that had been sitting under a tree. 

A 5-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl were resuscitated on Sunday and taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to police. The rest of the family was also taken to hospitals, with less severe injuries.

In other parts of Germany, emergency rescue personnel worked through the night responding to calls about downed trees, flood hazards and related issues.

In Quickborn in Schleswig-Holstein the storm caused power outages and some people had been temporarily trapped by flood waters.

In Genthin in Saxony-Anhalt, cellars and garages flooded and streets were blocked by fallen trees.

In the Kassel district in Hesse, underpasses were flooded, and in Söhrewald, a house was destroyed by a falling tree.

A car stands in a flooded underpass. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/Ralf Hettler | Ralf Hettler

READ ALSO: How changes to flood insurance could push up rates for homeowners in Germany

In Bremen the fire brigade was called more than 60 times, primarily to pump water out of flooded cellars.

Wettest 12 months on record

Germany has seen its fair share of flooded streets and cellars this year – far more than would typically be expected.

According to the German Weather Service (DWD), more precipitation fell between July 2023 to June 2024 than has ever been recorded in a 12 month span since records began in 1881.

During that time, around 1070 litres per square metre fell on average across Germany, according to DWD calculations. In comparison, the multi-year average value from 1961-1990 was around 789 litres per square metre per year.

READ ALSO: From swamp to sponge: Berlin harnesses rain to adapt to climate shift

DWD’s national climate archive shows that the past ten years have been marked by drought. 

However, Germany has seen a slight increase in annual precipitation on average over time since measurements began in 1881. 

According to the DWD, alternating dry and wet periods are to be expected. 

Dr. Frank Kaspar, Head of Hydrometeorology at the DWD said, “Precipitation is characterised by a high degree of variability both from year to year and over longer periods of time.” 

Germany has experienced a dry phase for several of the previous years, which has since given way to a very wet 12-month phase.

Climate scientists suggest that extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, are becoming more frequent and more severe worldwide due to the effects of human-caused climate change.

READ ALSO: Why are Last Generation activists in Germany getting prison sentences?

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Germany’s parks plant a way forward on climate change

In the castle gardens of Muskauer Park, which straddles both banks of the German-Polish river border, caretakers have mounted a fightback against the impacts of climate change.

Published: 14 September 2024 16:09 CEST
Germany's parks plant a way forward on climate change

On the stump of a 150-year-old oak tree, gnawed by parasites and felled in a storm, a tender new shoot represents the estate’s hope of adapting to rising temperatures and more frequent droughts.

As part of a “natural regeneration” project, the sapling was grafted onto its fallen predecessor by gardeners in the first step towards replacing the UNESCO-listed park’s lost trees.

The young oak “will benefit from the roots of the old tree and will be more resistant to threats”, gardener Jana Kretschmer told AFP.

By transmitting their DNA to the new saplings, the older trees “teach” their descendants how to adapt to less hospitable conditions.

“Nature shows the way, humans need only look on,” said Kretschmer.

Drought and pests are among the silent killers encouraged by climate change, which weakens plants and has started to decimate the flora of the parklands on both sides of the Neisse river.

Some 180 beeches, ashes and oaks had to be felled there last year.

“Every year since 2018 we have to cut down more and more trees,” said Kretschmer, the site’s deputy manager, who bemoaned the loss of countless old trees as a “catastrophe”.

Natural cure

In June, 15 German estates presented their plans to protect their gardens against the impacts of climate change.

At Muskauer Park, the groundskeepers are betting on the traditional method of natural regeneration to increase the tree-count.

Importing more resistant species of trees would be an option, but one that would be “neither sustainable, nor intelligent”, said park manager Cord Panning.

A natural regeneration approach moreover promises savings in two scarce commodities: money and water.

Following the method, caretakers select the best young specimens to plant them in place of old trees, eschewing genetic engineering or any foreign transplants.

In time, they hope to restore virtually all of the trees in the 19th century garden that have been lost and felled.

Among the pests to have plagued the trees at Muskauer Park are the tinder fungus and the bark beetle.

“Usually, by the time you realise it, it is too late,” said Kretschmer.

Long dry spells between 2018 and 2020 did nothing to help the situation, leaving the trees ever more vulnerable to attack.

Fungal invasion

Further south in Germany, at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, the spread of the phytophthora fungus and invasive mistletoe species are depriving trees of water.

“The trees are experiencing dry stress, even in years where rainfall is sufficient,” said Michael Degle, the palace’s landscape architect.

The Munich park has had a system of “sustainable tree management” since 2018, which employs moisture sensors and new pruning techniques.

The project feeds into the joint efforts of over a dozen garden estates in Germany, including Muskauer Park, to develop effective responses to climate change.

But their work is “reaching its limits”, according to the group’s June report.

Already, 20 to 30 percent of their budget is spent on fixing climate damage — a share which is only increasing.

According to their calculations, somewhere between 200 and 250 million euros ($220 and 275 million) would be needed in the long term to protect historic parks from rising temperatures.

The damage to trees at Muskauer Park by a warming climate will be on show at the estate’s open day at the end of September.

An opportunity, according to Kretschmer, to show that trees “are not just wood, but living beings much more clever than us”.

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