There are still a few days – but the German Weather Service has already measured more hours of sunshine than ever before. Once again, the season was too dry. At least a rainy weekend brightened up the drought balance a bit.
Germany has experienced the sunniest summer since records began. Specifically, the meteorologists of the German Weather Service come to 817 hours of sunshine by the end of the month, based on the measurements taken so far and including the forecast. The previous record was set in the summer of 2003 with a nationwide 793.3 hours. In addition, the season is again too warm and too dry, Andreas Friedrich from the DWD in Offenbach. “We are seeing a manifestation of global warming.”
At noon, the DWD announced the previous evaluations of its around 2000 measuring stations on temperatures, sunshine duration and precipitation shortly before the meteorological start of autumn on September 1st. “This year’s summer will be one of the hottest, but not in first place,” said the weather expert. He will probably place himself somewhere between second and fifth place.
According to the DWD, due to the lack of precipitation, it will also be the driest summer in many places or regions. However, as meteorologist Friedrich emphasizes: Just last weekend there was a lot of heavy rain in the east and south. “As a result, the summer was clearly too dry, but it didn’t make the top three in Germany.”
The last time it was particularly hot was in the summer of 2019 – with an average temperature of 19.2 degrees, it became the third warmest since recording began. Only the summers of 2003 (19.7 degrees) and 2018 (19.3 degrees) were even hotter. “The fact that we are seeing such records more and more frequently is clearly a result of climate change,” said Friedrich. According to preliminary DWD information, this year was the sixth warmest June since measurements began.
