TUHO:
At least 21 dead in ‘catastrophic’ flooding in western Germany | Germany | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/14/firefighter-drowns-and-army-deployed-amid-severe-flooding-in-germanyWith Germans voting in September to choose a successor to the chancellor, Angela Merkel, the extreme weather could heighten awareness of global heating, a topic with which the Greens, running second to Merkel’s conservatives, have so far failed to dominate the agenda.
On national broadcaster ZDF, news anchor Claus Kleber commented that low-pressure areas themselves were nothing new in the western parts of Germany. “But the fact that they are becoming more common has to do with the Arctic and the air above it getting warmer and weakening the jet stream,” Kleber said. “Therefore it has to do with climate change.”
Bernd Mehlig, an environment official from North Rhine-Westphalia, told WDR that the situation being experienced by the state was ordinarily only seen in winter. “Something like this, with this intensity, is completely unusual in summer,” he said.
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The floods were caused by a slow-moving low-pressure weather system, which brought down 148 litres of rain per square metre within 48 hours to a part of Germany that usually sees around 80 litres within the whole of July.