The sun is shining and shining – there are still hot days over 30 degrees this week. In the end, there could even be a new record summer.
Essen (dpa / lnw) – North Rhine-Westphalia is sweating and could be heading for a new record summer: The number of hot days with 30 degrees Celsius and more has increased significantly throughout NRW this year, said Thomas Kesseler-Lauterkorn from the regional climate office Essen of the German Weather Service (DWD) on Wednesday.
With 15 days until Tuesday of this week (23 August), the value is only just below the previous record annual value for North Rhine-Westphalia of 17.5 days from 2018. More hot days were certainly expected for Wednesday and Thursday. 2022 could be a new record year, said the climate researcher – depending on how hot it gets in the last days of August and then in September.
At the Cologne-Bonn weather station, the record value of 23 such extremely hot days from 2018 had already been reached as of Tuesday. With the two more hot days on Wednesday and Thursday, a new record can be expected there, said the researcher.
An adequate drinking water supply is still secured despite the heat for the summer and autumn, said the managing director of the working group of the water associations in North Rhine-Westphalia, Jennifer Schäfer-Sack. In the eight reservoirs of the Ruhrverband, the fill level is currently 71.5 percent, said spokesman Markus Rüdel. “Our supplies are sufficient.” However, as a precaution, the Ruhrverband had applied for the minimum level on the Ruhr to be lowered so that the dams would have to release less water.
The water level on the Rhine also recovered significantly on Wednesday. In Cologne, the water level at 5 a.m. rose significantly by 28 centimeters to 1.58 meters. The historic low here is 69 centimetres. In Emmerich, where there were even negative levels at times, the value shot up by 21 to 28 centimeters on Wednesday morning. However, spokesmen for the waterways and shipping administration had repeatedly pointed out that the increase was only temporary. On the Middle Rhine, the crest of this small wave caused by precipitation in the south is already through again, said spokesman Florian Krekel.
The number of hot days was 4.0 in the long-term annual mean for NRW between 1961 and 1990 and more than doubled to 8.1 in the period 1991-2000. In the “record summer” of 2018, 17.5 hot days were then registered across NRW, in 2019 it was 15.7, in 2020 11.9 days were recorded and in 2021 only 2.9.
This Wednesday it should be very hot and dry in NRW with temperatures of 30 to 34 degrees, on Thursday the temperatures will rise again to 31 to 35 degrees. The DWD predicted that thicker cloud fields should rise on Friday night and the risk of showers and thunderstorms will increase.
