Germany experienced its warmest year since records began in 1881, according to the preliminary annual report of the German Weather Service (DWD) released on Monday. This confirms an earlier forecast.
2024 was the second “record year” in a row, with a 0.3-degree Celsius increase over the previous year, said DWD spokesperson Uwe Kirsche. “This is accelerated climate change.” The very mild winter of 2023/2024, along with the record-breaking spring, brought unusually high precipitation levels. 2024 was a significantly wetter year in Germany, the weather service said. The amount of sunshine was only slightly above the typical average for the region.
The average temperature in 2024 was 10.9 degrees Celsius, which is 2.7 degrees above the value of the internationally valid reference period of 1961 to 1990 (8.2 degrees). Compared to the current and warmer reference period of 1991 to 2020 (9.3 degrees), the deviation was 1.6 degrees. This continued the trend of accelerated warming, which had already led to new records in the years 2023 (10.6 degrees), 2022 (10.5 degrees, like 2018), and 2023 (10.6 degrees).
The linear temperature trend since the beginning of measurements has now increased to 1.9 degrees, up from 1.8 degrees in 2023. The year 2024 was characterized by a mild start, followed by a winter phase with a low of -19.5 degrees Celsius on January 20 in Leutkirch-Herlazhofen, Allgäu. Spring began in February, with a mean temperature of 6.6 degrees, which was more like a cooler April. The spring itself also set a record for the warmest since the beginning of measurements in the DWD’s climate statistics.
According to the DWD, the summer was also “remarkably warm” with August even being one of the four warmest since 1881. The highest temperature of 36.5 degrees Celsius in 2024 was recorded on August 13 in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate. In September, heat records were set in the northeast, and the subsequent “deceptively high autumn mean temperature completed the character of the record-breaking year” the weather service said.
In 2024, an initial assessment of the DWD showed that an average of around 903 liters per square meter of precipitation fell, which is significantly more than the average of the reference periods of 1961 to 1990 (789 liters per square meter) and 1991 to 2020 (791 liters per square meter).
The year began with a winter flood in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt. The winter and spring were particularly precipitation-rich, with the hydrological winter half-year (November 2023 to April 2024) in Germany being the wettest since the beginning of measurements. The highest daily total of 169.8 liters per square meter was recorded on August 1 in Trendelburg, North Hesse. The highest amounts were measured at the Alpine rim and in the Black Forest, with local values over 2,600 liters per square meter, while the northeast of the republic was relatively dry, with regional values of under 500 liters per square meter.
The amount of sunshine in 2024, at around 1,700 hours, was above the average of 1,544 hours (period 1961 to 1990), the weather service said, and also in comparison to the newer reference period of 1991 to 2020 (1,665 hours). The highest values, up to 2,000 hours, were measured in parts of the Leipzig Lowland, the Upper Lusatia, and the Baltic coast, while in some western parts of Germany, the sun shone for around 1,500 hours.