Berlin is facing a meteorologically extraordinary weekend. On the one hand, because an extraordinary heat wave is approaching. And on the other hand, because the weather models are still completely undecided as to how far this heat wave, which is sweeping from Spain and France across Germany, will progress northwards: The range of maximum temperatures forecast for Sunday in Berlin ranged from 21 to 39 degrees on Thursday morning.
Jörg Riemann, chief meteorologist at the Tempelhof-based “Wettermanufaktur”, is certain after studying the forecasts that it will be hot. Not yet on Friday, when all weather models expect temperatures of around 25 degrees.
But already on Saturday, when it is supposed to be very hot with a maximum of 35 degrees, but not yet muggy thanks to the relatively dry air.
“On Sunday it will be more like laundry room weather with a similarly high temperature,” says Riemann. “I wouldn’t rule out going up to 36 or 37 degrees either. It depends on how fast the clouds come.”
The clouds are coming from the northwest – with a sharp cold front. “That means temperature differences of more than ten degrees over 100 kilometers on Sunday.”
[For all the latest news live on your cell phone, we recommend our app, which you can download here for Apple and Android devices.]
In practice, that means for Brandenburg: at least 33 degrees in Fläming, but only about 23 on the border with Mecklenburg. It’s just not quite clear where and how exactly the border will run.
When such different air masses collide, there is usually a great potential for severe weather in the summer months. According to the meteorologist, showers and thunderstorms are to be expected, “but definitely not the end of the world”. Which is good on the one hand, but on the other hand means that the extreme drought in Berlin and Brandenburg is still not being alleviated – which in turn results in a high risk of forest fires.
[Climate crisis in the region – always a topic in the district newsletters from the Tagesspiegel, order easily and free of charge at leute.tagesspiegel.de]
The weather change is expected to reach Berlin on Monday night. It should be possible to ventilate it again at a maximum of 23 degrees before it gets hot again, according to Riemann: another 30 degrees or even more can be expected in the middle of next week.
But after that it cools down to between 20 and 25 degrees, which is normal in early summer. The weekend after that will also be mixed, but probably not really rainy: the lows, which could bring the much-needed wetness to the region, will probably run out of breath, as so often, over the Benelux or, at the latest, in western Germany.
[More from the capital. More from the region. More about politics and society. And more useful for you. That’s now available with Tagesspiegel Plus: Test it now for 30 days free of charge.]
But first we have to survive the hot weekend. The Berlin all-time records will probably not be broken. The highest ever measured June value of 37.6 degrees on June 30, 2019 or the all-time record of 37.9 degrees on July 4, 2015 could be surpassed. The August record dates from August 1, 1994 and is 37.7 degrees.
All values ​​refer to the Dahlem measuring station, which has been supplying data since 1908. Higher temperatures were occasionally measured in other parts of the city, but these can only be compared to a limited extent with the Dahlem values ​​due to the partly relatively new locations surrounded by densely built-up areas.
