Summer is turning into winter! Discover the areas affected by this climate change.
In the heart of summer, while most Europeans are bringing out sunscreen and umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, some regions have had to bring out their snowplows! The weather is playing up in various parts of Europe, especially in Germany and France.
In Reutlingen, a town nestled in the Stuttgart Regie, Germany, summer has taken on a wintery twist. Last Friday afternoon, this quiet town near the foothills of the Schwäbische Alb was hit by a violent thunderstorm, accompanied by hailstorms, transforming the town into a winter landscape in the middle of August . According to reports, the height of the hailstones reached a staggering 30 centimeters. The municipal technical services were forced to deploy snow plows to clear the roads.
According to a statement from the city on the social network “X”, the combination of tree leaves and this thick layer of hail blocked the drains, causing flooding in underground garages, basements and even some dwellings. Firefighters had to intervene more than 120 times, mobilizing nearly 290 of their members to help residents. Fortunately, no injuries were reported. Surprisingly, an expert from Deutschen Wetterdienstes (DWD) classified this storm as “not extraordinary”.
However, it should be noted that the specificity of this storm lies in the fact that it hit an urban area, such as Reutlingen, where the effects of such a storm are more visible and devastating than in rural areas.
Meanwhile, in the south of our country, in the French Pyrenees, snow fell in the middle of summer at the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. Last Friday morning, webcams positioned at an altitude of 2,877 meters showed a layer of fresh snow covering the observatory site. This phenomenon, however, is not new. In 2022, similar snowfall prompted site scientists to turn the heating back on in August.
These weather events, although not classified as extraordinary by some experts, illustrate the vagaries of the weather in Europe. It may be time for all of us to rethink how we predict the weather and adapt to these unexpected events.