Anyone who has dreamed of summer in Germany up until now thought of the warm rays of the sun dancing next to the shadows of leafy green on the skin, splashing about at the lake, cycling through the fields, children playing in the sunset and an air that tasted of freedom. The shade was reserved for families and seniors, the sun was our friend.
If our children should think about summer later, they might have other images in their heads. Yesterday was such a day as there have been an alarming number of times this year. It was a day from another world, like from the far south. The sun was beating down on eastern Germany, the air was so hot that your heart jumped when you stepped outside. The lawn dried up in the shade at 36 degrees. The leaves on the hazelnut bush turned yellow and fell to the ground. Branches snapped from trees, felled by the drought. A pungent smell of burning wafted over Dresden and even made it impossible to air out at night, the only time that promises a bit of cooling on such days. The forests in the north and in the east are burning.
I'm a kid of the 80's and 90's. I remember summers when there were a handful of days when a visit to the outdoor pool would have been a good idea. On rainy days on Bavarian lakes and shivers on the Baltic Sea beach. On my birthday in June, when I used to have bad weather. All of this didn't always feel nice, but they were situations that we were prepared for: with board games, umbrellas and bathrobes.
I've been planning my birthday parties outside for two decades now, and I can rely on the good weather. Although the expression "good weather" should be discussed. In Germany, this means sunshine and warm air - in the meantime, however, this combination regularly leads to great heat and drought in summer, with few "good" consequences. Because we, as individuals and as a society, are ill-prepared for temperatures above 30 degrees. It is likely to be hot and dry more often in the future, as not only the German Weather Service (DWD) points out in its climate forecast up to 2028. The DWD predicts "mostly drier conditions in Germany", the probability of less precipitation is "particularly high" in some northern regions. The mean annual temperature will be between 0.5 and 1.0 degrees warmer than in the period from 1991 to 2020. At that time, the summer was an average of 17.6 degrees, in the 30 years before that it was 16.3 degrees.
Blessed is the one who has a fan, not to mention air conditioning. Today everyone is talking about heat protection plans for cities and municipalities. Charity organizations and the media calculate how many lives the extreme heat costs. The drought makes the forests burn more easily. In my daughter's day care center, where the children can usually play outside even when it rains, everyone had to stay inside from midday on the hottest days of the last few weeks. The bedrooms on the upper floor were given up and everyone moved to the basement. So instead of splashing about in the sunshine, it was time to play inside without daylight.
"Due to the strong wind, it was sometimes impossible to get to the fire," says reporter Sebastian Pieknik about the forest fires in Brandenburg and Saxony. Up to 400 emergency services fought the flames.
Source: WORLD
Anyone who stepped out of the door yesterday here in eastern Germany noticed: This summer sun is no longer just our friend. It's time we at least expand our idea of summer to better handle future heat waves and droughts.
During the night, cooler sea air brought cooling to the country. The wind has changed, the fine dust levels have fallen. Take a deep breath. 29 degrees are announced again for the course of the week. Mild, it almost seems. In the next week it could go up to 36 degrees again.
