Dense Fog and Below-Zero Temperatures Forecast to Make Halloween Night Treacherous

The German Weather Service (DWD) issued fog warnings for the night of 31 October, predicting visibility below 150 metres across a broad stretch of Germany from Schleswig-Holstein to Bavaria — including Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Niedersachsen and North Rhine-Westphalia. Temperatures were expected to dip to minus 2 °C near the Alps, in higher upland areas and some valley locations. Daytime highs on Halloween would range from 6 to 13 °C across the country, rising from south-east to north-west, while Berlin specifically was forecast to reach 12 °C. Almost everywhere the sky would remain heavily overcast, with clearer spells confined to western upland areas and the eastern Alps. On the peaks of the Hochschwarzwald, gusts of up to 70 km/h were expected, with individual storm gusts reaching around 80 km/h. From Saturday evening into Sunday morning, snowfall was predicted to begin in the Alps and the Bavarian Forest, with the snow line dropping to around 1,000 metres. An earlier DWD forecast indicated accumulations of up to 10 centimetres on exposed windward slopes where orographic lifting intensifies precipitation, and up to 20 centimetres in the Berchtesgaden Alps, though exact amounts remained uncertain. The fog is a typical autumn pattern: a high-pressure system combined with subpolar ocean air allows cold air to pool at ground level overnight, while a layer of warmer air above traps it — a lid that the low autumn sun increasingly fails to break through. German road traffic law limits drivers to 50 km/h when visibility falls below 50 metres, and rear fog lights may only be used at that threshold.