A temperature of 39.9°C was recorded in Tempelhof on Saturday, June 27. This was the hottest temperature ever observed in Berlin, one degree more than the pervious record of 38.9°C measured in August 2015 in Köpenick. On the same day, Potsdam saw its own record of 40.4°C.
Sunday was almost as hot in Berlin and even hotter elsewhere in Germany. On June 28, the country broke its heat record with a recorded temperature of 41.7°C in Neißemünde-Coschen in the Eastern part of Brandenburg. Before this weekend, the nation’s hottest temperature on record was 41.2°C, measured in July 2019. It was surpassed on Friday in Saarbrucken, Saarland (41.3°C), then on Saturday in Möckern-Drewitz, Saxony-Anhalt (41.5°C) and then again Sunday in Coschen.
Such temperatures saw widespread damage to infrastructure across the country and the whole of Europe including fires, transportation delays and cancellations and melting asphalt, as well as a large number of excess fatalities. In Berlin, three people drowned over the weekend when seeking refuge from the heat by jumping into water.
The heatwave is an “exceptional” event according to ClimaMeter, a scientific platform that analyses extreme weather events. A study they conducted found that our burning of fossil fuels is responsible for temperatures being 2 to 4 degrees hotter than they would be otherwise.
