After an unseasonably warm start to October, it looks like the weather is shifting. The coming days are expected to bring heavy rain in places and a drop in temperatures across Germany.
Starting Wednesday evening storms brought heavy rain to parts of Germany, beginning in the west and southwest regions and moving northeastwards through the night into Thursday morning.
Heavy rain of up to 20 litres per square meter and strong gusts of wind up to 65 km/h were expected through Thursday, according to the German Weather Service (DWD). In the western uplands, there was a risk of heavy rain with up to 35 litres per square meter.
The rain came with much colder temperatures. In the places that were hit by the storm first, temperatures plummeted by 10 degrees from Wednesday to Thursday.
The coming days are to be significantly cooler all around, with highs of 14 to 18C seen across most of the country.
On Thursday morning, the DWD had severe weather warnings in place along Germany’s southern border in the Alps, and strong wind warnings were in place along much of the northern coast, including around Bremen, Hamburg and Kiel.
Rain is expected to continue for several hours in the Black Forest, with heavy downpours and isolated thunderstorms possible here.
As of around 10am, rain radar maps showed a thick band of clouds extending from around Lake Constance in the south, stretching through western Germany over cities like Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Hanover, and reaching Hamburg and beyond in the north. The storm pattern was set to creep eastward across most of Germany through the day.
In eastern regions, however, most of the rain is not expected until Friday.
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Snowfall in the mountains
Rain will be heaviest along the edge of the Alps on Thursday, and is predicted to continue through the night to Friday.
As temperatures drop, the snow-line is predicted to come down to 1,500 meters, meaning that elevations higher than this may be covered in snow on Friday morning.
The DWD predicts a few centimetres of snow on the ground in the high Alps ahead of the weekend.
Over the weekend that snow-line could drop down further to 1,000 meters. Wet snow may also fall on the Feldberg and Fichtelberg mountains.
Meanwhile in the north, repeated thunderstorms will affect the North Sea coast on Saturday and Sunday.
Overnight low temperatures will be quite cold, as low as 3C in places, or up to around 11C in warmer regions.
Looking ahead, it seems the chilly and wet autumn weather is here to stay for a while.
The weather in the week to come may bring a mix of showers, hail, brief sunny breaks and even more snow in the mountains. Daytime temperatures are expected to be mild, hovering in the 14 to 17C range in many places, but the pleasantly summer-ish weather seen in early October appears to be at an end.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
