Jena (dpa/th) - According to the State Office for the Environment, Mining and Nature Conservation, 2022 was the warmest year in Thuringia since weather records began in 1881. It brought all-time heat records at many Thuringian weather stations, almost 2000 hours of sunshine and a five-month drought phase from the end March into August, as the authority announced on Monday. At the same time, Thuringia recorded the most sunshine last year since 1951, when the number of hours of sunshine was counted for the first time.
Last but not least, the extraordinarily high temperatures in the last ten days of December with an average of 10 degrees plus contributed to this development, it said. The 17.7 degrees Celsius measured in Jena on New Year's Eve were said to be the warmest December day since 1824. The series of measurements in Jena goes back almost 200 years.
The warmest day of the year was July 20, when temperature records tumbled in many places in Thuringia. 39.1 degrees Celsius were measured in Jena. Even the 732 meter high Kleine Inselsberg in the Thuringian Forest just missed the value of 35 degrees Celsius that day with 34.7 degrees - according to the state office, this mark is referred to as a desert day.
2022 comes in with a total of 1969 hours of sunshine on average for the Free State since records began. According to the information, the mark of 1900 hours of sunshine per year in Thuringia had only been exceeded three times before - in 1959 (1957 hours), 2003 (1945) and 2018 (1939).
At 584 liters per square meter, precipitation over the course of the year was a fifth less than the average for the years 1991 to 2020. The drought lasted from the end of March into August.
According to the state office, the six warmest years since records began in Thuringia have all been in the past nine years. This is a clear indication of the climate crisis that is becoming increasingly noticeable in Thuringia.
