Weather
Stormy start to a warm weekend
It is expected to be unusually warm in Germany this weekend. photo
© Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa
Germany is facing an unusually warm first weekend in April. On the Upper Rhine it could even be 30 degrees. Before that, however, strong winds will cause problems in some regions.
The start of an unusually warm AprilIn parts of Germany, the weekend is associated with stormy weather. Isolated hurricane-like gusts or “short-lived tornadoes” cannot be ruled out this Friday, according to the forecast from the German Weather Service (DWD) this morning.
The DWD expects isolated strong thunderstorms with squalls, heavy rain and hail for the north of Germany today. In the southeast half it will be partly clear and in the south it will often be sunny and dry.
According to the forecast, the maximum values are 14 to 20 degrees in the north and northwest, although it will be cooler at the sea. In the other regions of Germany, 19 to 25 degrees are expected – with the highest values in the Upper Rhine.
Suspected tornado near Mönchengladbach
Strong winds were already causing problems for people in some places on Thursday. In Korschenbroich near Mönchengladbach, a tornado possibly damaged around 20 houses. A house roof was completely covered, said a spokesman for the Neuss police this morning. Nobody was injured.
The suspicion that the weather phenomenon was a tornado is obvious, said a spokesman for the Korschenbroich fire department, who was an eyewitness himself. But he couldn’t confirm this.
The German Weather Service (DWD) was also unable to confirm the weather phenomenon in the morning. Experts would first have to analyze images of them, said a spokesman. Nothing was known this morning about the extent of the property damage in Korschenbroich.
In Bavaria – in Berching in the Neumarkt district of Upper Palatinate – several house roofs were damaged by weather on Thursday. In the morning, the Upper Palatinate police headquarters spoke of a “wind storm”. The DWD could not initially confirm whether a tornado had actually occurred in the morning.
Unusually high temperatures this weekend
The police were initially unable to provide the amount of damage or further details about the consequences of the storm in Berching. In Schirmitz in the Upper Palatinate district of Neustadt an der Waldnaab, a smaller storm blew some tiles off the roofs but caused little damage, a police spokesman said.
Germany is facing unusually high temperatures for the first weekend in April. The DWD meteorologists expect warming to 19 to 24 degrees in the extreme north and northeast this Saturday, 24 to 29 degrees elsewhere and even up to 30 degrees in the Upper Rhine. In the north and east of Germany it will initially be partly cloudy on Saturday, later quite sunny there – as in the rest of the country. Most of the time it should stay dry.