Berliners flock to parks and beaches as sizzling temperatures arrive in Germany
World
The unusually high temperatures were also a cause for concern for people out
BERLIN (Reuters) –Parks and beaches were packed with sunbathers and people relaxing as early June temperatures hit highs, expected to edge past 30 degrees Celsius over the weekend.
Most people were enjoying the good mood the sun brings to the city where, as one educator out with a pre-school group said, street life was thrumming and park and cafe life was in full flow.
But the unusually high temperatures were also a cause for concern for people out and about as low rainfall and warm days have seen much vegetation in the city already drying out.
The German Weather Service expects temperatures to remain too high throughout the summer and has warned of an extreme drought.
The trend forecast shows that the meteorological summer from June to August will be too warm again, the spokesman for the German Weather Service in Offenbach, Andreas Friedrich, told Reuters TV on Friday.
Friedrich added that the expected one-degrees increase this summer will be much too dry, causing problems for agriculture and increasing the risk of forest fires. River levels are also expected to drop again causing shipping problems.
Seasonally early high temperatures can also have a health impact. "The UV index is very high, and many are not yet highly tanned," Friedrich said. "You really have to be very careful there and just pay attention to sun protection accordingly."
The weather also poses a problem for pollen allergy sufferers, he said. "Because of these dry, windy conditions, sunny conditions, we have a very high exposure to grass pollen in some cases."
At Wannsee, a pretty Berlin lakeside beach, people out were enjoying the first of the summer's hot days, but as visitor Martin Esmann said, some are starting to look differently at the sunny weather:
"It's funny, back then you used to get annoyed when it rained and now it's different."
