Storm low “Ylenia” reached Germany on Thursday night. The north and east of the country were particularly affected. In Hamburg, the Hamburg fish market was flooded by a storm surge on Thursday morning. “At the St. Pauli gauge, a value of 1.98 meters above the mean high water was measured,” said a spokesman for the storm surge warning service of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency. There were also flight cancellations and interruptions in rail traffic.
There was also a storm surge in Schleswig-Holstein. In Husum, at the Eidersperre and in Büsum, for example, the high water levels on Thursday morning were more than 1.5 meters above the average high water level. Hamburg and the north have already experienced several storm surges this year since January 29th.
In the German capital of Berlin, the fire brigade declared a state of emergency. In Kleve on the German-Dutch border, a corona test station could not withstand the wind. According to firefighters, no one was injured. In the German state of Brandenburg, the fire brigade was in constant use in many districts.
The storm also affected rail and air traffic. A tree fell on the tracks between Bremen and Hamburg. An ICE therefore had to be diverted, as a railway spokesman said. In the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, trees occasionally blocked branch lines in the Dortmund area. The Dortmund-Münster connection was temporarily affected.
As a precaution, Lufthansa canceled 20 flights, as the company announced. Travelers were advised to check the airline’s website for the status of their flight. Connections to Berlin, Hamburg and Munich are affected at the largest German airport in Frankfurt am Main.
According to the German Weather Service (DWD), average wind speeds of 120 kilometers per hour were measured shortly after midnight on the exposed Brocken in the Harz Mountains. The wind peak was 152 kilometers per hour.
In other parts of Germany, too, there were hurricane gusts and hurricane-like gusts in exposed locations such as mountain peaks: Wind speeds of an average of 87 km/h were measured on the Feldberg in the Black Forest, with peaks of 125 km/h. There were severe gusts of wind, for example, at Cape Arkona on Rügen (77 km/h, 105 km/h peak) and at the Kiel lighthouse (79 km/h, 101 km/h peak).
According to the DWD, the wind from low “Ylenia” will slowly decrease from Thursday afternoon. However, the breather should only be brief. The next hurricane “Zeynep” is expected to come from the British Isles as early as Friday afternoon.