Overview
- A first major outbreak on Friday evening hit western and northwestern Germany, prompting hundreds of fire and rescue calls and around 800 deployments in Kreis Steinfurt for flooded basements and fallen trees.
- Emergency operations included rescues and evacuations: two rowers were pulled from the Werse in Münster, concerts and camps were paused or moved to safety, and a roof fire was reported after a suspected lightning strike.
- Transport networks remain disrupted with Deutsche Bahn reporting route restrictions and cancellations on ICE and regional lines and airports such as Hamburg and Köln/Bonn facing weather-related delays and recorded extreme gusts.
- Meteorologists say the storms are driven by the clash of lingering warm, humid air and moist Atlantic flows under strong upper‑level wind shear, a setup that can produce long‑lived, rotating supercells and intense localized rainfall.
- Authorities urge people to avoid outdoor exposure, follow local instructions and prepare for more rounds of severe thunderstorms through midweek that could bring very heavy rainfall, large hail and damaging gusts.