It can’t have escaped your notice that the weather in Germany has been rather wet recently. Now it’s official: the 12 months from August 2023 to July 2024 have been the wettest ever recorded in Germany, new statistics from the German Weather Service (DWD) show. 

August 2023 to June 2024 rainiest ever seen in Germany

With just over a week to go until the end of July, the data shows that the past 12 months have already been the rainiest recorded in the federal republic since records began in 1881. Up to and including July 20, 2024, an average of around 1.030 millimetres of precipitation has been measured across Germany since August last year. This is 130 percent of the average yearly rainfall of 791 millimetres. 

DWD describes the fact that this year has seen a third more rain than usual as “very remarkable and unprecedented.” Indeed, it is the first time ever that a 12-month period has seen more than 1.000 millimetres of rain and smashes the record set in 1960 / 61, when 993 millimetres of precipitation was recorded. 

Compared to the averages from 1991 to 2020, August 2023, November 2023, December 2023 and May 2024 all saw markedly more precipitation. Only in September 2023, March 2024 and July 2024 was rainfall below average. The period from October 2023 to February 2024 saw five above-average wet months in a row. November 2023 was the second wettest since records began, and the winter overall was the fourth-wettest since 1881. 

Above-average rainfall causes flooding but helps forests

As the DWD notes, the above-average levels of precipitation have had “both positive and negative effects on nature.” Flooding has been widespread this year, particularly over the Christmas holidays in Lower Saxony and in mid-May in southwestern Germany, particularly Saarland and the Palatinate. 

Then at the beginning of June, southern Germany saw a “once-in-a-century flood”, as a result of extreme rainfall in southern Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, bringing flooded streets, burst dams, numerous evacuations, closed railway lines and unfortunately some injuries and deaths. 

The flip side to this, the DWD writes, is that the excess rainfall has helped to restore groundwater levels, which until recently were worryingly low. “The situation has finally eased again this winter,” the DWD said. “The historic drought that has been going on since 2018 has ended… The vegetation, especially the forests, can benefit from this.”