Germany’s DWD national weather service reports that the country saw it’s third warmest winter on record (since 1881) and the 13th warmer than normal winter in a row. Image may be NSFW.
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Germany’s 2023/24 winter was among the warmest and wettest on record going back to 1881. Photo: Artland Region, northwest Germany, by P. Gosselin
Record February high
Moreover, February set a new mean temperature record by a wide margin, as the German Weather Service (DWD) reported after initial evaluation of the results from its approximately 2,000 measuring stations.
The DWD writes that it was an “exceptionally mild weather” with very little winter weather. At a mean of +4.1 degrees Celsius, the average temperature in winter 2023/2024 was 2.7°C above the value of the 1991 to 2020 reference period (1.4 °C). Only the winters of 2006/2007 and 2019/2020 were warmer.
The coldest reading in Germany was -19.5 °C on January 20th, 2024, in Leutkirch-Herlazhofen. The warmest reading was measured in Rosenheim in Upper Bavaria, 18.8 °C, on February 16th.
Record rain in northern Germany
The very warm winter was in most part due to the prevailing westerly weather pattern, which persisted through most of the winter and brought in rain fronts from over the warm Atlantic. The colder northerly and easterly winds were seldom.
At around 270 liters per square meter (l/m²), almost 145 percent of the precipitation of the 1991-2020 reference period (190 l/m²). Parts of the north in particular were affected by historic December precipitation. At the top was Braunlage, in the Harz Mountains, with over 800 l/m².
At 156 hours, the duration of sunshine this winter in Germany saw a deviation of around 10 percent below the mean (170 hours). December was particularly gloomy.
The northern German lowlands were home to the gloomiest regions, with less than 100 hours in some areas.
