Apart from the mountain regions, sleds were rarely used in Germany last winter: According to the German Weather Service (DWD), winter 2021/22 was the eleventh too warm in a row.
The average temperature was 3.3 degrees Celsius and was thus 3.1 degrees above the value of the reference period 1961 to 1990, as the DWD announced on Monday in its preliminary winter balance sheet. Compared to the later, warmer period from 1991 to 2020, the deviation is at least 1.9 degrees. This makes the winter of 2021/22 one of the seven warmest since continuous weather records began in 1881.
Around the Christmas holiday, snow showed up first in the south, then in the northeast for a few days. In the lowlands, on the other hand, one looked for it mostly in vain. In the west and south-west of the country, the winter has mostly failed, according to the evaluations of the approximately 2000 DWD measuring stations in Germany. From the beginning of December to the end of February, numerous locations did not register a single day with permafrost.
At the turn of the year there were even regional temperature records: Rheinfelden in the extreme southwest of Baden-Württemberg reported 18.2 degrees on January 4th, the highest value in Germany this winter. All in all, it was an extremely mild “cold season” with lots of sunshine, according to the meteorologists. The lowest temperature in Germany was recorded in Oberstdorf in the Allgäu on December 22 with minus 19.2 degrees Celsius.