Status: 02/21/2022 11:10 a.m
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With “Antonia” Germany experienced the third storm night within a few days. Overall, however, “Antonia” left less damage than feared. And the weather forecast also gives hope.
The series of violent storms over large parts of Germany continued during the night. This time, “Antonia” is causing severe gusts of wind, after rows of trees had been overthrown and buildings damaged by the hurricanes “Ylenia” and “Zeynep” in the past few days.
Storm depression “Antonia” sweeps over Germany
Ben Buck, ARD-Aktuell, tagesschau24 09:00 a.m., February 21, 2022
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For a number of regions from the Baltic Sea coast to the edge of the Alps, the warning map of the German Weather Service was colored orange to red on Monday night – there were severe weather warnings of storm and hurricane gusts.
Overturned trucks and damaged houses
Above all, heavy gusts of up to 100 kilometers per hour swept across Baden-Württemberg in the lowlands. On the Feldberg even at a speed of up to 149 kilometers per hour.
A truck overturned on the Fehmarn Sound Bridge in Schleswig-Holstein due to the strong wind. The bridge was fully closed in both directions in the early morning. The closure is expected to be lifted by mid-morning. The truck driver was unharmed. The bridge connects the Baltic Sea island of Fehmarn with the mainland.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, violent gusts destroyed house roofs and damaged cars. In Herdecke, south of Dortmund, the roof of an apartment building flew off and landed on another roof. The second roof was also massively damaged. Nobody was injured. Elsewhere, trees fell as a result of the storm. The roof of the car was damaged. Overall, however, “Antonia” in North Rhine-Westphalia initially suffered significantly less damage than feared during the night.
Bahn warns of train cancellations and delays
Train travelers in the north still have to bring a lot of patience and time. There are also disruptions in rail traffic in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. “Due to storm damage, there will also be delays and cancellations in rail traffic in parts of Germany on Monday,” said Deutsche Bahn on its website. As a result, no long-distance trains run between Hamburg and Rostock/Stralsund, Berlin and Rostock/Stralsund and between Norddeich Mole/Emden and Cologne. In addition, a very high utilization rate must be expected on the other long-distance trains.
Regional traffic in the north was also far from the normal timetable on Monday. So there should be impairments on the routes until at least Monday afternoon. Many trains were traveling at slower speeds. On some routes, trains could only start later or not at all due to previous reconnaissance trips.
Deutsche Bahn asked its passengers to find out whether the planned journey was possible. This applies in particular to commuters in rush-hour traffic. Those who can should postpone the trip. According to Deutsche Bahn, a total of more than 6,000 kilometers of the route network are now not passable after the past few days of storm.
Ferry traffic is also partially suspended
Disabilities do not only exist on the rails, but also, for example, for ship passengers on the Baltic Sea between Rostock and Denmark. As the ferry company Scandlines announced, the trips between Rostock and the Danish port of Gedser were canceled until noon.
Severe weather warnings lifted
An end to the series of storms over large parts of Germany is in sight. The German Weather Service lifted its official severe weather warnings for hurricane-force gusts or hurricane gusts for Germany. “However, there are still warnings of gusts of wind, sometimes severe gusts of wind, in large parts of Germany,” said the DWD. “In addition, there are only a few exposed peaks warnings of hurricane gusts.” The cold front from storm “Antonia” crossed Germany to the south-east. Behind it, however, it will remain very windy to stormy, it said. Towards evening the wind dropped significantly.
The wind will remain an issue this week, according to a DWD meteorologist. “However, it will be a completely different house number than what we are experiencing these days”.
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