Germany's First Winter Frost Arrives After October Peaked at 27.5 °C

Germany has swung from late-summer warmth to winter frost in the space of roughly four weeks. On 1 October, Mehringen in Saxony-Anhalt recorded 27.5 °C, which the DWD's monthly review identified as the highest value of the month. Today the Alpine foreland is struggling to reach 4 °C — a difference of 23.5 degrees.

Southeast of a line from the Rhineland to the Baltic, the week is opening with frost and dense fog that is cutting visibility below 150 metres in places. The coldest overnight conditions are in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, where temperatures are falling to minus 3 to 0 °C. The DWD has issued level-1 frost warnings running from midnight to 08:00 in parts of Thuringia, the Enzkreis, and Berlin, where the service is forecasting minus 1 °C. Icy patches may form on bridges in Baden-Württemberg, and fog is persisting along the Danube and in Upper Swabia well into the day.

Daytime highs will reach only 4 to 12 °C today, with the warmest readings along the North Sea coast at 11 to 13 °C. An easterly wind is set to establish itself from Wednesday, keeping nights frosty through the weekend. For the weekend of 7 to 9 November the DWD is forecasting 5 to 10 °C with light overnight frost.

Further out, the models diverge. The American model shifts the high toward Iceland and Greenland, allowing polar air to surge south and bringing a possible 1 to 15 cm of fresh snow above 300 to 500 metres in the south around 13 November.