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Stormy weather at the Dagebüll ferry terminal in Schleswig-Holstein
Photo: Bodo Marks / dpa
According to the provisional balance sheet of the German Weather Service (DWD), January 2023 is one of the months that were too warm.
With a Germany-wide average temperature of 3.5 degrees, the month was 4.0 degrees above the value of the internationally valid reference period from 1961 to 1990, as a spokesman said about the preliminary evaluation of the around 2000 DWD measuring stations.
One of the warmest January months since 1881
This corresponds to the temperature level of a typical March - i.e. the first month of spring.
January 2023 is therefore among the ten warmest January months since records began in 1881.
According to the information, the decisive factors for these values were the spring-like record temperatures on New Year's Day and the first half of the month, which was sometimes record mild and also rainy.
It only became wintry in the past two weeks with more typical January temperatures and regional snowfall.
19.5 degrees Celsius on New Year's Day
Freiburg am Oberrhein
reached the peak value on New Year's Day
with 19.5 degrees, while the lowest of this January was measured on January 19 in Meßstetten on the Swabian Jura with minus 16.8 degrees.
Together with
Bremen
,
Hamburg
was the warmest federal state in January, according to the DWD.
As in Schleswig-Holstein, the turn of the year brought record temperatures of up to 16 degrees in the Hanseatic city.
The weeks that followed were also mild.
Except for a light night frost, there was no sign of winter in Hamburg.
All in all, January was also relatively mild in Schleswig-Holstein.
It was also the second wettest region in Germany.
Good for dry soils: more rainfall than usual
With around 67 liters of precipitation per square meter in January 2023, there was almost ten percent more precipitation nationwide than in the reference period.
The highest daily total was 71.9 liters per square meter on January 12 in Wipperfürth-Gardeweg in
Oberbergisches
.
The sometimes heavy rainfall in January eased the situation in large parts of Germany after last summer's drought.
Soil moisture looks good up to a depth of one meter, said DWD spokesman Andreas Friedrich.
Sun hid in January
An exception are parts of Saxony-Anhalt and northern Thuringia, where the soil is still far too dry.
In order for the required level of soil moisture to be achieved there again, it must be too rainy in the next two or three months.
With around 35 hours of sunshine in January, it missed its target of 44 hours by almost 20 percent.
It was significantly sunnier on the North Sea and in the mountains - here, according to the DWD, more than 60 hours of sunshine were achieved locally.
It's storming in the north
The fronts of a northern European storm are currently reaching
Schleswig-Holstein
and
Hamburg
, resulting in stormy weather with violent gusts of magnitude seven to nine and severe gusts of wind up to magnitude ten on the North Sea and on Fehmarn.
The temperatures are a mild six to eight degrees.
In
Berlin
and
Brandenburg
, too, people have to be prepared for stormy, showery weather.
During the day it remains gray and changeable with maximum temperatures of between four and seven degrees.
Rain, sleet and sleet showers may occur at times.
On Tuesday, rain and gusts of wind at six degrees are to be expected during the course of the day.
On Wednesday, too, people can expect stormy winds and lots of clouds - the maximum is seven degrees.
Saarland: Car crashes from the bridge when it is slippery – semitrailer truck slips into the house
In Saarland, a car fell off a bridge on Monday morning when it was slippery.
In Friedrichsthal, a 64-year-old died after losing control of his vehicle on a sloping and slightly winding stretch of road with, according to the police, considerable slippery roads.
The car collided with a crash barrier, spun across the roadway, broke through a bridge railing and fell about five meters onto a sidewalk.
The car overturned when it fell and landed on its roof, police said.
The man, who was alone in the vehicle, died at the scene of the accident.
In
Saarbrücken
, a semi-trailer truck with larger steel parts slipped across into a house in the Ensheim district.
Neither the driver nor the two residents of the house were injured in the accident, according to rescue workers.
ala/dpa