As of: March 1, 2024, 12:09 p.m
By: Manuela Schauer
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The cloud, which often forms in the Lech area, makes a curve around the Ammergau Alps so that it does not have to climb at least 800 meters in altitude on its way.
She prefers to choose the route outside and therefore goes over Bad Bayersoien, among other places.
© pms
Hail, heavy rain, storms - all of these weather events are common in the region.
It feels like storms are becoming more and more common.
Is that actually the case?
Among other things, expert Stefan Schwarzer provided information about this in Bad Bayersoien.
Bad Bayersoien – The weather is a force of nature.
One that cannot be stopped.
Despite technology, says Stefan Schwarzer, “we are dependent on nature and the weather”.
At the mercy of both.
All around the world.
But no one needs to travel to India or Iceland to experience heavy rainfall or storms.
There have been enough storms in close proximity over the past 20 years.
“We have to live with that,” emphasizes the man from Peißenberg, “and in the future too.
There are no long predictions about when they will come.
Schwarzer knows what he's talking about.
He has been passionate about this topic for around 30 years.
He worked as a weather observer on the Zugspitze for eleven years and has since worked on the Hohenpeißenberg, the oldest mountain weather observatory in the world.
Because of his wealth of experience, the Bad Bayersoien fruit and horticultural association booked him for a lecture.
A consequence of the devastating hail in 2023. At that time, the club stopped all events because everyone was busy repairing the damage.
“But at some point,” says chairman Daniel Haser, “we wanted to know how the weather was developing.” A question that wasn’t just on his and his team’s minds.
Over 60 interested people, primarily from the village, show up for the lecture in the Gunklstube, squeezing into every gap.
What Schwarzer cannot give them that evening: the all-clear they had hoped for before another massive storm.
Are storms increasing?
The expert, who runs a private weather station in his garden as a hobby, cites the most powerful events in and around Bad Bayersoien as an example (see box).
They seem to illustrate what many are thinking.
That storms are increasing due to climate change.
But Schwarzer clarifies: In theory yes, but difficult to prove in practice.
There is a lack of a correspondingly close-knit measurement network.
Examples of severe weather from the region
Many people still have the
Pentecost flood of 1999
in their minds.
Also Stefan Schwarzer.
From the Zugspitze he looked north and saw the “Murnauer Meer”.
Around 155 liters of water per square meter fell in 24 hours.
Recurring hail and wind events
followed in July 2021
.
At that time, a cloud arose near Füssen, which followed the same path every day and showered hail in the local districts.
The wind uprooted numerous trees.
“I've never experienced anything like that before.” Less than a year later, on May 5, 2022, a
super cell discharged over Saulgrub and parts of Bad Bayersoien.
A man lost his life in the flooded bypass.
What came from heaven is still hard to believe for Schwarzer today.
There was almost as much precipitation as during the Pentecost flood, only not in 24 hours, but in two hours.
He doesn't need to remind anyone about the
hail catastrophe
in the summer, it's still in the Soians' limbs to this day.
“It’s really fortunate that no one was injured.”
In contrast, there are clear data and changes in other areas.
Among other things, the temperatures.
The weather observer uses the February values at Hohenpeißenberg.
The average is minus 0.4 degrees; in 1990 it was already 5.1 degrees.
And this year?
Record – 6.2 degrees!
Schwarzer predicts that things won't continue like this, but the values should settle at a high level.
The consequence: flowers and trees bloom earlier.
But the frosty nights do all the work, the leaves freeze and damage occurs.
At the invitation of the Bad Bayersoien fruit and horticultural association led by chairman Daniel Haser (l.), Stefan Schwarzer gives a lecture in Bad Bayersoien.
© Schauer
Another problem: drought.
2023 in particular “was absolutely upside down”.
Normally there is the highest rainfall in June, last year this was the case in November.
June turned out to be the driest month.
What followed: First a period of drought and then too much water.
Overall, normal amounts of precipitation were recorded, but the fluctuations were extreme.
“A problem of today,” says Schwarzer, who works as a programmer for the Global Atmosphere Watch and developed the flood early warning system SWarn.
Lake Garmisch - just a matter of time
As those directly affected, the listeners' interest is primarily focused on the dangers posed by storms.
Schwarzer examined three variants that evening:
■
This includes
permanent precipitation
that lasts for hours and days.
The expert, who reports on the local weather on a website, explains clearly and in a version that is understandable for laypeople how this phenomenon occurs.
The normal low pressure area would move from west to east coming from the Atlantic.
But there are exceptions, such as so-called Vb layers.
The deep behaves like people.
It moves to where it is warm, towards the Mediterranean near Genoa and goes on vacation there.
But warm air absorbs a lot of water vapor.
In plain English: The low recharges you.
To illustrate the forces at play, Schwarzer uses an almost unbelievable comparison: “A standard storm cloud,” he says and is astonished, “has the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.” Back to the vacation: It’s over, the depression moves to the Alps.
On the way over the mountains the humid air cools down and it begins to rain.
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The amount of precipitation that is possible varies widely.
There were around 155 liters per square meter during the Pentecost flood.
“We were under land.” The Elbe flood in 2006 was in a different, even more dramatic league – with 354 liters in 24 hours.
“If that were to happen, the only thing left to do at Eschenlohe would be to build a dam wall,” emphasizes Schwarzer.
Behind it everything would be a Lake Garmisch.
A scenario to be expected.
Purely statistically.
“It’s a matter of time that it will come.” Just when.
.
.
■
Another prime example is
local heavy rainfall in summer
.
Their unpopular brother is called Höhenwind.
Unpopular when it is conspicuous by its absence and does not push the clouds over the land as it should so that they can drain the water regionally.
Instead, the cloud hardly moves from place when the weather conditions are constant.
Ergo: It rains and rains and rains in one place.
You would just need a crystal ball to locate it exactly.
“You can only warn an entire area that there is potential for explosive weather.” The “good” news is that it doesn’t affect every place every year.
■
The Soiers want nothing more than that.
You can safely avoid
hail events
on the scale of last year.
Preferably forever.
Ice balls weighing 150 grams shot from the sky at around 130 kilometers per hour, leaving a path of destruction behind.
But the speaker dampens hopes.
“We are one of the hotspots” for events of this kind.
And that's because a cloud ticks like some people.
She doesn't want to bother herself unnecessarily.
It often forms in the Lech area near Füssen, where the water of the Forggensee provides it with additional “food”.
The often prevailing, albeit weak, westerly wind pushes them forward, but the cloud then quickly hits the mountains of the Ammergau Alps.
It would have to climb at least 800 meters.
“That takes energy,” explains Schwarzer.
She'd rather save herself that and choose the softer route outside via Wildsteig and Bad Bayersoien.
There she may have to conquer another 150 meters in altitude.
“This is a great option for the cloud.” An even better option over flatter land leads via Peiting and beyond.
“But it’s nature,” emphasizes Schwarzer.
“We can't do anything about that.
We can’t stop the hail anywhere.”