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February 10, 2012
Ice and snow cause traffic chaos
Published: 19 Dec 09 17:01 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091219-24051.html
The biting cold that has blanketed Germany in snow and ice caused chaos on the roads at the beginning of the weekend, killing at least two people and causing thousands of accidents, particularly in the west of the country.
- Rent-jumping family caught by police (9 Feb 12)
- Sick pups found in van (9 Feb 12)
- Arctic cold wreaks quirky havoc across Germany (8 Feb 12)
The plummeting temperature caused the breakdown of the power plant for chemical firm BASF in Ludwigshafen in Rhineland-Palatinate.
The temperature at the Funtensee lake in Bavaria dropped to -33.6 degrees. Northern Germany’s highest peak, the Brocken in the Harz mountain range, had its coldest December night in 31 years: -21.7 degrees.
However the German Weather Service (DWD) is forecasting an end soon to the bitter cold, with warmer air replacing low pressure system Vincent by the end of Sunday. Temperatures were set to creep back above zero by Monday and climb to about 5 degrees on Wednesday.
Police said a 24-year-old female driver died in a collision near Neumünster in Schleswig-Holstein after she skidded on snow around a curve into the path of oncoming traffic. Similarly a 52-year-old man in the same state went onto the wrong side of the road and was killed in a collision. His wife suffered life-threatening injuries.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, 20 people were seriously injured and another 85 suffered milder injuries in accidents. The cost of accidents was estimated at about €2.5 million.
In an ice-covered carpark in the Mendig region of the Rhineland-Palatinate, a 39-year-old woman slid into parked car, shunting it into a truck and causing serious head injuries to the truck’s passenger.
Police in Bavaria counted more than 200 accidents overnight on Friday, causing several injuries, though none life-threatening.
Click here for The Local's weather forecast.
DDP/DPA/The Local (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
So much for global warming. Christopher Lord Monckton says were are actually in a global cooling trend, and have been since 1998.'
a cooling trend uh? is that why the polar ice caps and glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate? global warming and climate change are not interchangeable terms. the effect of human induced climate change does not exclusively result in warmer temperatures. weather patterns are projected to become more extreme and unpredictable which can also result in very cold weather. however, the overall temperature trend remains a warming one.
What you are seeing is a natural fluctuation in weather patterns.
Even though the temperatures are cooling ( warming in your opinion ) .. this is nothing to get exited about.
The earth has been around for more years than the average person can get their head around.. and a 10 year sample of temperature fluctuations is hardly a reference to tax the crap out of all us surfs.
Wake up.
You would resort to violence just so that you could get the Governments of the world to continue this "Global Warming " farce?
Global warming is only one consequence of climate change.... and by the way, decades of reliable data on changes to weather/climatic patterns exist than just '10 year of temperature fluctuations'.
The OVERWHELMING INFORMED scientific and public opinion disagrees with you.
piper1 and other climate change sceptics are entitled to your views. There is no point trying to convince those who choose to fiddle whilst rome burns.
When and if this tiny island nation submerges, I will be convinced.
( If Global Warming was such a terrible catastophe, the Copenhagen summit would have produced something.. I say there are more skeptics than beleivers )