Severe weather warnings are in effect for many regions of Germany until Thursday morning. Freezing rain in particular hinders traffic. The biggest problems in the afternoon weren’t at the train, but at an airport.
As of Wednesday afternoon, severe weather warnings apply to central and southeastern Germany. The reason is snowfall, storms and, above all, extreme slippery conditions. Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate are particularly affected. The German Weather Service DWD warns that black ice due to freezing rain can be expected for a strip from Trier to the Rhine-Main area. The highest warning level initially applied to this region, but in the late afternoon the DWD changed the warning to the second highest level.
The second highest warning level also applied to that Saarlandthe south of North Rhine-Westphalia, large parts of Thuringia and Saxony as well as the north and east of Bavaria.
Many accidents – including pedestrians
Streets and sidewalks in the affected regions have often turned into dangerous slides. There have been numerous accidents, alone in Saarland By midday there were already more than a hundred. At least one person died in an accident caused by slippery roads. The man drove his van off the road in a curve in the Eifel and crashed into a tree. In most other accidents, however, there was only sheet metal damage.
The slippery conditions also pose a danger for pedestrians, as the sidewalks in particular are often slippery. According to rescue workers from several cities, passers-by repeatedly fell and injured themselves.
Tip for pedestrians: Experts recommend the “penguin walk”
Falls can often be avoided or at least mitigated by learning how penguins walk. Similar to animals, pedestrians should not roll their feet when it is slippery, but rather place them flat and with their legs slightly apart, advises trauma surgeon Christopher Spering. This makes the walk more stable. To avoid falling on the back of your head or back if you do fall, he also recommends bending your upper body slightly forward. Your hands should not be in your jacket pockets while walking. It is best to hold on along the way, for example to fences or traffic lights.
The waddling “penguin gait” is not the most elegant: “But it’s better to look a little stupid than to end up in the emergency room later,” continued the head of the Prevention Section of the German Society for Orthopedics. The best preventative measure in extreme slippery conditions is: “Don’t go out at all.”
Takeoffs at Frankfurt Airport temporarily suspended
School operations were completely stopped in large parts of Bavaria on Wednesday due to the risk of freezing rain. In some districts in North Rhine-Westphalia there are no face-to-face classes on Thursday either. In many places, police and other authorities called on people to stay at home if possible and to avoid unnecessary car journeys. Apparently many followed this call. Only a few cars were on the streets, said a spokesman for the police headquarters in Offenbach. This was probably due to the warnings from the DWD.
The disruptions in air traffic were particularly severe. At midday, Germany’s largest airport in Frankfurt am Main had to partially suspend operations. Since the machines could no longer be safely de-iced before take-off due to persistent freezing rain, they were no longer allowed to take off.
According to the airport’s website, all incoming flights were canceled in the afternoon. According to the airport operator Fraport, the background was that the parking positions were full. In any case, hundreds of flights had already been canceled at Frankfurt Airport as a precaution – as well as at Germany’s second largest airport in Munich. According to the website, the rest of the flight operations there ran normally in the afternoon.
ICE trains are allowed to travel at a maximum speed of 200 km/h
At Deutsche Bahn, which has often had the biggest problems in winter weather recently, the restrictions were comparatively limited. There were also major disruptions here, especially in the Rhine-Main area. Long-distance traffic from there towards Mannheim had to be stopped in the late afternoon, the railway announced on its website. In addition, the ICE connections to Paris were canceled.
As a precautionary measure, the maximum speed of the ICE trains was limited to 200 km/h – which naturally leads to delays on routes where travel can otherwise be done faster. A spokeswoman said in the afternoon that there were delays and cancellations in regional and long-distance transport. For how long, she couldn’t say. If you want to postpone a trip planned for today, you can also use your train ticket at a later date – even if it is actually tied to a specific train.
Information from the railway on regulations for affected travelers
All passengers who would like to postpone their trip planned for January 17, 2024 due to the onset of winter can use their ticket at a later date. The train connection has been lifted. The ticket is valid for the journey to the original destination, even with a changed route. Seat reservations can be canceled free of charge. In addition, the other tariff and statutory passenger rights apply, so that e.g. B. a ticket refund is also possible under the appropriate conditions.
Buses often don’t run
The weather had a massive impact on local public transport. In Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate, transport companies temporarily stopped their bus services completely due to freezing rain. Those affected included the Saarland capital Saarbrücken and the region around Trier in Rhineland-Palatinate.
Bus traffic also had to be partially stopped in the Rhine-Main transport association – for example in the Groß-Gerau district. According to the transport association, the rail replacement service for local trains on the Riedbahn – one of the railway’s major renovation projects – has also been discontinued.
Air mass limit about Germany
Responsible for the severe weather situation is an air mass boundary where cold polar air from the north over Germany meets warmer and humid air from the south – a weather situation that last occurred in a similar form in 1987, according to this Tim Staeger from the ARD Weather Competence Center. Since this clash of air masses can last for hours and bring with it large amounts of precipitation, there is a risk of “a thick layer of ice” forming on the roads, the weather expert said in an interview tagesschau24.
The extreme situation should gradually ease on Thursday night. But it remains cold and partly slippery.