For the third day in a row, the German Weather Service (DWD) reported on Sunday a record hot temperature, this time of 41.7 degrees Celsius in the eastern state of Brandenburg.
The provisional record high was recorded in the afternoon in Neißemünde in the Brandenburg district of Oder-Spree, the weather service said in response to an enquiry. The town is around 130 kilometres south-east of Berlin on the Polish border.
The most recent record for the country's hottest temperature had only been set two days ago, when the weather service recorded 41.3 degrees on Friday in Saarbrücken-Burbach near the French border, according to preliminary figures.
On Saturday at 3 pm (1300 GMT), 41.4 degrees was measured at the same station. The next record was also registered on Saturday at 4:20 pm with 41.5 degrees in Möckern-Drewitz in Saxony-Anhalt.
Warmest night since records began
The night that followed was, according to preliminary DWD figures, the warmest since records began. In Kubschütz in eastern Saxony, the overnight temperature did not fall below 29.4 degrees. That beat the previous record for the warmest night - 27.2 degrees Celsius on August 13 2003 in the Weinbiet mountain in Rhineland-Palatinate - by more than two degrees.
Rail services and motorways affected
Germany's previous heat record had stood for seven years at 41.2 degrees, measured on July 25 2019 in Tönisvorst and Duisburg-Baerl in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Because of the heat, Germany's railway Deutsche Bahn and other rail companies advised against non-essential travel on long-distance and regional services over the weekend.
On Saturday evening, more than 600 passengers were stranded on a train in the Prignitz region of Brandenburg without air conditioning, with temperatures reaching 50 degrees, according to the local online portal MAX. Three people were taken to hospital with circulatory problems. A tree had fallen onto an overhead line during a storm.
Road traffic also suffered heat damage. The ADAC motoring club reported numerous motorways in many federal states were affected by closures and speed restrictions over the weekend. In many places, the road surface buckled in the heat because the concrete expanded.
At least 10 drown in swimming accidents
Since Friday, at least 10 people have died in swimming accidents. In Berlin, two men were recovered dead on Saturday from different bodies of water, a 27-year-old drowned in the Neckar near Heidelberg and a 30-year-old died in a lake near Neuhofen south of Mannheim.
In the state of Hesse, a 40-year-old was recovered dead from the Waldsee Raunheim lake south-west of Frankfurt. A 6-year-old boy drowned in the Rhine-Herne Canal in Herne.
Cooler weather on Monday
The heatwave was expected to shift eastwards during Sunday, with the DWD predicting some severe storms and even hail, especially in the east. Isolated storms were also possible in the west and south. Lower temperatures are expected on Monday, with highs between 25 and 29 degrees with up to 32 degrees in the east and south-east.
Extreme weather situations like this have become more frequent in Germany because of the climate crisis and are likely to increase further. Figures from the weather service show that the average number of days with temperatures above 30 degrees in Germany has increased.
