Overview
- Recent hydrological tracking shows the drought is widespread and severe, with duerreradar.de reporting 261 of 400 counties in drought and 211 in extreme or exceptional dryness in data published on September 14.
- The Deutsche Wetterdienst warned in August that soils in southern Germany are in many places drier than in 2018 and 2022, leaving low river levels and depleted groundwater across major basins such as the Isar, Donau and Main.
- An old farmers’ rhyme linked to Lambertustag (September 17) and a related 18 September rule has a long‑term statistical association with dry following seasons at roughly two-thirds frequency but is not a deterministic forecast.
- DWD and regional forecasts for 17–18 September produced mixed, regionally varied conditions—sunny in many inland areas but showers on the northwest coast—so the days provided at best a probabilistic signal rather than proof of another dry year.
- Experts stress that climate change shifts the weather patterns that produced such folk rules, and a repeated dry year would further harm crop yields, forest health and municipal water supplies while increasing pressure on irrigation and river transport.