Severe Weather Diary, Germany, Winter 96-97

The following is a meteorological diary of the severe winter weather in Europe during the winter 1996-97, primarily focussing on conditions in Germany. This information has been chiefly gathered from the Berliner Wetterkarte. Geographical locations (eg. "East", "North") refer to within Germany, unless otherwise stated

A ridge of high-pressure, extending from Iceland to Poland, leads to the gradual advection of very cold air from Scandinavia, aided by strong night-time cooling in mostly clear skies. This is the start of the severe weather, which lasted, unbroken, for about 4 weeks in total. At least 45 people froze to death in Germany alone during this time (Some 200 in Europe as a whole).

• First ice-days in the east. Max. -3.5 C in Leipzig for example.
• Clear skies at night see temperatures falling widely below -10 C (-12 C in Dresden) throughout the north-east.
• Still mild in the south. Max. 9 C in Freiburg

• Remains well-below freezing during the day, especially in a band across central Germany. Maxima include -8 C at Leipzig and Prague.
• Another clear night leads to severe cooling, especially over snow. Harzgerode (Unterharz) records a minimum of -19.5 C. Snowcover is nevertheless still confined to the central hilly regions.

• The cold intensifies in central regions. Prague has a maximum of -12 C, similar values are recorded in Germany's central hills (Mittelgebirge).

• Strengthening easterly winds advect the cold air westwards and further south.
• Freezing rain occurs widely in the south due to mild air aloft being advected over the cold surface air. Traffic chaos occurs in Munich as a 5mm-thick layer of ice rapidly coats all exposed surfaces, including roads, pavements, cars, lampposts, trees, walls and fences. (This was still visible on many surfaces over 3 weeks later). Some 500 traffic accidents occur and an estimated 550 cases of people slipping badly on the ice are reported, some resulting in serious injury with one person killed.
• Much of the south now has recieved a light snowcover.
• Fassberg (Lüneburger Heide) records a minimum of -13.6 C the following night, despite a lack of snowcover there.
• It remains very warm in southern Italy at this stage. 21 C in Naples, 25 C in Palermo

• Continuing easterly winds ensure that the west gets its first taste of the severe weather. Saarbrucken has a max. of -6 C.
• The follwing night sees temperatures falling below -10 C over virtually the whole of inland Germany. Roth near Nürnberg records -21.6 C.

• An occluded front pushes across the north, associated with a new High centre over Scandinavia, bringing some light snow to the north and a brief rise in temperature there.
• The severe cold intensifies in the south-west. Stuttgart and Freiburg have maxima of -7 C.
• Nürnberg has a min. of -17 C.

• The High is centred over Denmark and cold air floods across Croatia into Italy. The cold is severe throughout E.Europe. Warsaw has a maximum of -14 C. Vienna has -10 C.
• The following night is exceptionally cold in the south-east. Straubing on the Danube reaches -24.5 C. Even Rome has a minimum of -5 C and Venice -6 C.

• Under light winds and clear skies the cold reaches its most severe. Much of southern Germany has maxima below -10 C and the north is only slightly warmer. Munich Airport has a max. of -12 C and it falls there to -20 C the following night.
• The next night sees temperatures below -10 C over virtually the whole country. Straubing sees -26.4 C, Germany's lowest temperature of the spell. Other extreme minima in Eastern Europe are -23.3 C in Prague, -28.5 C in Poprad (Tatra) and -35.7 C in Ivano-Frankovsk (W.Ukraine).

• Prague's highest temperature of the day is -15 C. Even Freiburg, normally the mildest corner of Germany, has a max. of just -8 C.
• Berlin records its coldest night for 10 years (-16 C).
• The night is exceptionally severe again in the south, with the -20 C mark being widely broken. Erfurt reaches -23.5 C
• Venice has a minimum of -9 C for the second night in a row. The day inbetween reaches only -3 C.

• A weak area of low pressure begins to form bringing snow to the north. It remains very cold with maxima below -5 C away from the north coast, and below -10 C in the south.
• Paris has a max. of just -5 C

• Low pressure over NW Germany brings several cms of snow to a wide area. The upper Rhine valley lies under 15cms.
• Prague has a max. of -14 C. This extremely cold air now begins to flow westwards overnight. Gardelegen (north of Magdeburg) falls to -23.6 C.

• Easterly winds over the north bring the extremely cold air to that region. Maxima are below -10 C over large parts of Germany and as low as -16 C in the Mittelgebirge region. Hannover and Twente (Holland) both record maxima of -12 C for example.
• The night of New Year's Eve is exceptionally cold, especially in the north. Some values; Frankfurt -15 C, Leipzig -20 C, Hannover -20 C, Nürnberg -18 C, Cologne/Bonn -20 C and -25.2 c at Gardelegen.

• New Year's Day is the coldest day of the spell in the west. Paris has a max. of -9 C. Other low maxima include -11 C in Berlin, -14 C in Hannover, -10 C in Bremen, -12 C in Cologne and -14 C in Dresden and Leipzig.
• The following night, the lowest temperature in northern Germany of the winter was recorded: -26.3 C at Gardelegen.
• Parts of Greenland are exceptionally mild. Godhab records a max. of 13.0 C

• Low pressure over the western Mediterranean begins to advect milder air up from the south over the Alps. The cold begins to become less severe in the far south.
• Maxima remain below -10 C in much of the north. eg. -14 C at Magdeburg.
• Again the temperature falls to -21.5 C at Gardelegen.
• The sea has begun to freeze along the Baltic coast. Many inland waterways have become impassable due to thickening ice. Dozens of people become trapped on north German islands due to ice preventing ferries from travelling and must be airlifted out by helicopter.

• Much milder air reaches the far south. Temperature reaches +4 C along the northen edge of the Alps. Strong easterly winds keep the north frigid but prevent strong nighttime cooling, although Ueckermunde reaches -15.6 C. Maxima in the north widely around -6 C.

• Along the mild/cold air boundary, heavy snow causes further problems at Frankfurt airport where 16cms of snow lay. Freiburg has 20cms of snow lying and Mannheim 22cms.
• Seehausen has a min of -17.0 C, but away from the north-east, the temperatures remain above -10 C with maxima typically -5 C.

• Temperatures continue to hover close to freezing in the far south. Much of Germany is cloudy with maxima in the north around -7 C.

• High Pressure continues to stretch from Iceland, across the UK, to E. Europe, preventing any mild air incursions into the cold areas.
• Low maxima are again widely recorded, especially across all of central Germany. Examples are -7 C at Chemnitz and Bad Salzuflen, and -9 C in Hof.
• Where sufficient breaks in cloud-cover occur, the night becomes once again very cold. At Hof the minimum is -16.5 C.

• The cold intensifies again, spreading back south where Munich Airport has a maximum of -7 C.
• Light off-shore katabatic flow leads to especially low temperatures on parts of the north coast. The island of Nordeney has a maximum of -7 C, the resort of Cuxhaven has -6 C and Lübeck has -9 C. In the night, Barth on the Baltic coast has a minimum of -12.9 C and the temperature falls to -10 C even at the exposed peninsula, Kap Arkona.
• The night is again very cold, especially in the central hilly regions, where skies are fairly clear. Aue (Erzgebirge) falls to -17.7 C. Further west, -18.2 C is recorded in the Eifel near Aachen.

• Little change in the synoptic situation means that the whole of central Europe remains in the grip of the cold weather. Maxima are again below -5 C over much of the north and down into Bavaria. Holland remains very cold too, Amsterdam has a max. of -7 C. The Ijsselmeer, the inland sea, has frozen over.
• Increasing cloud prevents a widespread severe frost, but some locations fall below -10 C. Zwiesel (Bayerischer Wald) has -16.5 C, while in the north, Bremervörde records -14.1 C.

• Much of Germany is cloudy with the frost becoming less severe in the east. Daytime maxima remain below -5 C in the north-west however, with -7 C in Essen for example.
• Temperatures fall below -10 C only in isolated locations, -13.4 C at Eifel being the lowest.

• The frost continues to become less severe, with day maxima mostly between -1 C and -5 C.
• Only the north-east is sunny, where Seehausen later records a minimum of -10.9 C. Otherwise, minima are above -5 C is many areas.

• A new high forms over central Europe, while very mild air starts to encroach on the British Isles from the south-west. Dublin has a maximum of 14 C. In north-east Germany, an increased easterly flow, intensifies the cold again. Neubrandenburg has a maximum of -6 C
• It is a mostly cloudy night, except near the north coastal fringes where Lübeck has a minimum of -14.3 C, and in Alpine valleys, where Oberstdorf records -15.8 C.

• As the large High sits over eastern Europe, winds turn south-westerly over northern Germany, allowing temperatures to creep just above freezing in the north-west. Aachen, in the lee of the Ardennes reaches +5.8 C by midday. But the south remains cold, Hof has a maximum of -6.5 C.
• Berlin has its last ice-day of the spell: its 24th in a row. This is 5th-longest such spell of continuous freezing of the century. Greater spells in Berlin occurred only in February 1986 (26 days), Dec/Jan 1984-85 (28 days), Jan/Feb 1929 (31 days) and Jan/Feb 1947 (39 days).
• Away from the north-west, the night is cold and clear is many places. Mannheim has a minimum of -13.7 C, while at Zwiesel it falls to -18.4 C.

• High pressure sits over the south, preventing any mild air incursion at low levels, while northern areas become much milder in a westerly flow. Maxima around +6 C occur in the north-west, while along the Danube, freezing fog and low cloud keep the temperature widely between -6 C and -8 C. Prague too is very cold again with a maximum of -8 C.
• Clear skies at night lead to strong cooling and minima widely below -10 C again in the south. Memmingen reports a value of -16 C.

• The High over the south continues to trap very cold surface layer air there. Along the freezing-fog-prone Danube, Straubing has a maximum of -8 C, whereas temperatures around +8 C are common in the north, accompanied by largely clear skies.
• This was the last ice-day of the cold spell in Munich city centre, the 24th in a row. This is the longest continuous freeze there for 34 years.
• Another very cold night in the south with minima below -10 C through most of that region. Lechfeld reports -14.8 C while Bamberg has a minimum of -15.4 C.

• The strong inversion situation over the south leads to remarkable temperature contrasts between some low-lying stations (Regensburg maximum -7 C), and mountain stations (Churanov, Böhmer Wald, CZ, 1122m altitude, just 70km further east, maximum +14.4 C)
• Equally remarkable are the contrasts at low-levels in upper Bavaria, where the onset of a light Föhn breaks up the inversion in the plains just north of the Alps. In the southern half of Munich, the station Bavariaring records a maximum of +9 C, while Munich-Airport, 20km to the north-east, has a maximum of -3 C.
• Another cold, clear night sees Bamberg reporting a minimum of -16.4 C, Mannheim -16.2 C and the region of hard frost returns further north, where several stations fall below -8 C.

• The anticyclone continues to dominate the weather over central Europe. Nevertheless, daytime maxima are above freezing over most of Germany, except in some low-lying river valleys. Low maxima include -6 C in Mannheim and Regensburg and -8 C in Prague.
• It is another night of widespread severe frost. Only the north-west escapes. Straubing has a minimum of -16.2 C.

• Again, some low-lying areas in the south remain very cold and cloudy, especially along the Danube, where Regensburg has a maximum of -8 C. Otherwise, much of the country is mild.
• But the cold spell is not entirely over. It is another clear night with hard frost in many areas. Bamberg's minimum is -14.7 C while Augsburg has -14.2 C

• Freezing rain, associated with mild air intrusion from the west, causes havoc in places, especially in Baden-Würrtemburg and Hessen. But still the cold air hanging over the Danube remains unbudged. Regensburg has a maximum of -5 C.
• Even greater temperature contrasts than 3 days earlier are noted in upper Bavaria. Munich-Bavariaring reports a maximum of +10.8 C, aided by Föhn and strong sunshine, while Munich-Airport has a maximum of -2.5 C.
• This diary's author walks 2 miles across the solidly frozen lake Schliersee on the edge of the Alps, on which hundreds of people are enjoying the opportunity for ice-skating in wide-open spaces in beautiful warm sunshine, more fitting for April than January. The ice is covered by a 1-2 cm thick layer of rime, which also coats many branches in the shade, making for lovely scenery.
• Hard night frost is now confined to only a few locations in Bavaria. Straubing has a minimum of -12.5 C.

• With cloud and rain spreading over from the west, the cold spell is effectively over, although the Danube valley remains cold, Passau has a maximum of -4 C.
• The remainder of the winter proved to be very mild so that this diary is brought to a close with this entry.