February weather: bombs, climate rescuers and a hurricane

What an awful month.

Apart from the fact that for almost two weeks everything has been overshadowed by the Russian attack on Ukraine and the fate of the people there can of course not be compared with life in Frankfurt.

But somehow in February things didn't go really well here on the Main either.

There was constant excitement, distraction, and bad news.

The one about the death of Gail Halvorsen, for example, the famous “Candy Bomber”, who not only brought food from Frankfurt during the Berlin Airlift, but above all also brought hope to the divided and sealed-off city on the Spree.

Or the report of the World War II bomb that was found during construction work at Rebstockpark in the middle of the month and had to be defused - and once again reminded us of the dark times of our past.

Peter Badenhop

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Oh, and then there was always the pandemic.

We've all gotten used to it amazingly - or better: frighteningly - well, but it still makes many of us sick.

And the unteachable "lateral thinkers" and opponents of vaccination with their strange slogans still regularly walk through the city.

Yes, and as if all that weren't annoying enough, self-proclaimed food and climate rescuers are now constantly sticking themselves to important arterial roads to attract attention.

It all came together in February, making the month one you'd like to forget in a hurry.

Not even the weather could change that, which was mild, sunny and friendly like it hadn't been for a long time.

That had very little to do with the official winter season

, but it could have brightened the mood at least a bit.

Should have - because then there was Ylenia and Zeynep, the two storm lows that didn't cause much damage but caused some excitement.

Four degrees too warm

But now to the meteorological facts: With an average temperature of 5.8 degrees, February was four degrees too warm compared to the long-term normal value of 1.8 degrees.

That's a word, even in times of climate change, which has given us deviations of two or more degrees for a long time.

February 2022 has been the sixth warmest since records began at the weather station at the airport in 1936. It was almost a degree warmer again in 1990 with 6.7 degrees and in 2002 and 2020 with 6.5 degrees each.

In view of such values, the average of minus 8.0 degrees from February 1956 seems hard to imagine.

At that time there was frost on 28 of 29 days and even permafrost on 26 days.

This time the meteorologists at the airport have registered nine days with minus temperatures and not a single one with permafrost.

The lowest temperature this time was measured on February 13: minus 5.8 degrees.

On February 1, 1956, it was minus 19.6 degrees, a value that has not been reached since.

But the past month was also a long way from the highest February temperature in Frankfurt, measured at 19.1 degrees on February 27, 2019: It reached its maximum on February 16 with "only" 14.0 degrees.

What made the weather in February so pleasant, apart from the mild temperatures, was above all the sunshine, which brought a total of 100.8 hours to a respectable plus of 35 percent.

This is not record-breaking, because the peak value is 153.9 hours and dates from February 2003. But it fits in with the trend of the past few years, in which February was repeatedly particularly sunny and sometimes even showed a plus of 80 percent .

Record-breaking hours of sunshine

However, the meteorologists from the airport station did have a record to report: On February 28, the sun shone over Frankfurt for exactly 10.3 hours.

This is not only the absolute peak for February, but also for the entire winter - and from an astronomical point of view it can hardly be surpassed.

Finally, another noteworthy aspect: while the average in the precipitation category reigned this time at 37.7 millimeters and the measuring station on the edge of runway west registered just one day of sleet, the meteorologists had significantly more to deal with when it came to storms to report.

Basically, storms are not unusual in the transition period from winter to spring.

As in autumn, the differences in air pressure cause strong gusts from time to time.

This time, however, it was particularly violent in Frankfurt: instead of the usual two days with storms, there were nine;

only twice have there been more of them in February, namely eleven each in 2002 and 2020.

And what Zeynep achieved over Frankfurt on February 18 was at least as spectacular: a gust of 122 kilometers per hour.

That is hurricane force and extremely rare in our regions, statistically something like this only happens every 15 years.

But in this strange month, that somehow fitted into the picture.