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Dried up sunflowers on a field in Brandenburg
Photo: Z6944 Sascha Steinach / picture alliance / ZB
A summer that was too hot was followed by an autumn that was too warm, the third warmest since measurements began across the board in 1881.
October in particular was rich in sun.
Not least because of this, a second assessment – for a meteorologically unusual period – is possible for the weather service: “Never since 1881 has the period from January to November been as warm in Germany as it was in 2022,” said DWD spokesman Uwe Kirsche.
According to the weather service in Offenbach, the average for the first eleven months of 2022 was 11.3 degrees Celsius.
The previous high was in 2020 with 11.1 degrees for this period.
With an average temperature of 11.8 degrees, the period from January to October was the warmest that has been measured so far.
At 10.8 degrees, the average temperature for autumn 2022 was 2.0 degrees above the value for the internationally valid reference period from 1961 to 1990. Compared to the current and warmer reference period from 1991 to 2020, the deviation was 1.5 degrees.
For meteorologists, autumn ends in November.
According to the calendar, it lasts until December 21st.
The weather service sees the fact that the warmest October months of the last 140 years all fell in this millennium as a clear indication of climate change.
Heat winner North Rhine-Westphalia
In some regions in autumn 2022 it was even as hot as usual in summer: the maximum value was in Kleve on the Lower Rhine on September 5th, where the thermometer showed 32.3 degrees.
North Rhine-Westphalia
was also the warmest federal state with an average of 11.8 degrees Celsius in autumn.
The value is 2.3 degrees above the long-term mean of the international reference period from 1961 to 1990.
Overall, the autumn temperature was over 11 degrees Celsius in eight federal states, i.e. in half of the states.
In
Saarland
it reached an average of 11.7 degrees Celsius.
Bremen
comes third with an autumn temperature of 11.6 degrees Celsius,
Hamburg
fourth with 11.4 degrees.
Rhineland-Palatinate
comes fifth with 11.3 degrees.
There, 2022 was probably the second warmest autumn since measurements began.
The final information will only be available after November 30th.
The average temperature in autumn 2022 was also over 11 degrees Celsius in
Lower Saxony
,
Schleswig-Holstein
and
Baden-Württemberg.
With 11.2 degrees Celsius each, they share sixth place.
Minus 11.6 degrees Celsius on the Brocken
Autumn in Berlin
and
Hesse
was a little cooler, but still significantly warmer than usual,
with an average of 10.8 degrees Celsius.
place seven.
Berlin had the sunniest autumn in a nationwide comparison: the sun shone there for 450 hours, almost 150 hours more than in the reference period.
However, this had its price: The DWD chose Berlin as the sunniest region, but at the same time as the region with the least precipitation.
According to the DWD, the sun shone nationwide for a good 370 hours this autumn – that was almost 20 percent more hours of sunshine than in the period from 1961 to 1990 and 15 percent more than from 1991 to 2020.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
and
Saxony-Anhalt
share eighth place in the temperature ranking for autumn 2022
with an average value of 10.7 degrees Celsius.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the warmest October since measurements began, together with 2006, pushed the statistics up.
In both federal states there was a significant cold snap at the end of November.
In the Upper Harz on the Brocken in Saxony-Anhalt, the thermometer showed minus 11.6 degrees Celsius on November 20, the nationwide low of this autumn.
With 415 hours of sunshine, autumn in Saxony-Anhalt was also very sunny compared to the rest of Germany.
Brandenburg
(10.4 degrees Celsius) and
Thuringia
(10.2 degrees Celsius) land in ninth place.
Autumn was also very sunny in Brandenburg: 408 hours of sunshine, almost a hundred hours more than in the reference period.
There was also a great drought there.
Temperatures in Thuringia went crazy: the warmest October since measurements began was followed by a temperature drop.
On November 20th, the early temperatures in the region around Erfurt fell below minus 10 degrees Celsius.
Autumn 2022 was the coldest in
Bavaria
(10.1 degrees Celsius) and
Saxony
(10 degrees Celsius).
Nevertheless, the value in Bavaria was still 2.2 degrees Celsius above the reference period, it could be the second warmest since measurements began.
Next to 2001, Saxony recorded the warmest October, November was unusually sunny.
The autumn sun shone there for a total of 400 hours.
More precipitation in autumn
"October in particular was exotic," says the DWD, summing up the autumn weather in Germany.
The month went down in history with its partner 2001 as the warmest in Germany.
One of the summer's problems improved in autumn: the severe drought ended.
According to the DWD, the 2022 season was "slightly above-average wet".
An average of around 205 liters of precipitation per square meter fell across Germany.
That was around twelve percent more than in the reference period from 1961 to 1990. Compared to 1991 to 2020, the increase was around eight percent.
It rained the most in the Black Forest and the Alps.
With 86.0 liters per square meter on October 14, Utzenfeld in the southern Black Forest had the highest daily precipitation in Germany.
In contrast, it remained very dry in the north-east.
But there was enough snow in one or the other area at the end of the November decade.
Just in time for the start of the meteorological winter on December 1st, the temperatures drop significantly.
At the weekend there is a risk of permafrost in some regions of eastern Germany, as the forecast center announced on Wednesday.
The nights are also becoming increasingly frosty.
At the end of the week, the moisture is increasingly reflected in snow or snow particles.
The danger of ice increases.
Snow masses are not expected yet.
jme/dpa
