Germany sees warmest March ever as records keep coming

Berlin. Germany last month saw its warmest March since records began, the DWD weather office said on Tuesday, rounding off an unusually mild winter.

At 7.5 degrees Celsius (45.5 degrees Fahrenheit), the mean temperature was four degrees above the average for the internationally recognised reference period of 1961 to 1990, the DWD said.

On March 30, temperatures reached 24.9 degrees in Cottbus, near the border with Poland, and 24 degrees in Munich in the south.

February 2024 had also set a new all-time record with an average temperature of 6.6 degrees.

Preliminary figures for the whole winter released in February showed that Germany had seen a long spell of unusually warm and wet weather.

An average of 270 litres of rain per square metre fell between the beginning of December and the end of February -- almost 50 percent more than the usual amount, the DWD said.

With an average temperature of 4.1 degrees, the winter as a whole was the third-warmest since records began in 1881, according to the preliminary figures.

It was the 13th very mild winter in a row for Germany, the DWD said.

Globally, 2023 was by far the hottest year ever recorded, the annual State of the Climate report by the UN weather and climate agency confirmed in March.

Global temperatures "smashed" heat records as heatwaves stalked oceans and glaciers suffered record ice loss, the United Nations said.

"There is a high probability that 2024 will again break the record of 2023," WMO climate monitoring chief Omar Baddour told reporters.

Earlier today, Spain reported that it's on track for the warmest first three months of the year since record keeping began.