Status: 30.11.2022 3:30 p.m
Autumn 2022 has already set some temperature records. It is the third warmest since 1881. But this is not the only thing that is extraordinary: the entire period of the year up to and including November was warmer than ever recorded.
The period from January to November 2022 was the warmest on record. Never since 1881 have these months in Germany been as warm as this year, as reported by the German Weather Service (DWD) after the first evaluation of the results of its around 2000 measuring stations. According to the DWD, autumn 2022 was the third warmest since measurements began.
The average since the beginning of the year is 11.3 degrees Celsius. The previous high of 2020 was 0.2 degrees less. This year’s autumn was “extraordinarily warm”, it said. At 10.8 degrees Celsius, the mean temperature was two degrees above 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 Celsius. For meteorologists, autumn ends in November. According to the calendar, it lasts until December 21st.
Clear indication of climate change
With an average temperature of 11.8 degrees Celsius, the period from January to October was the warmest that has been measured so far. “Especially October was exotic,” sums up the DWD. The month went down in history with its “partner” 2001 as the warmest in Germany. The weather service sees the fact that the warmest October months of the past 140 years all fell in this millennium as a clear indication of climate change.
Despite partly summery temperatures in autumn, the drought that had prevailed before has come to an end. According to the DWD, the third season of the year was “slightly above average wet”. There was an average of around 205 liters of precipitation per square meter across Germany – twelve percent more than in the reference period 1961 to 1990. At the same time, however, the sun also appeared more often than average: in autumn there were 370 hours of sun, almost 20 percent more than in the reference period.