A few days after the meteorological beginning of spring, a new onset of winter has caused slippery roads in parts of Germany. The police reported many accidents with several injuries on Wednesday night, especially in the north and in Hesse. For the most part, however, it remained with sheet metal damage.
A spokeswoman for the police headquarters in East Hesse reported in the morning on slippery accidents in the low double-digit range. A car crashed into a bus on a country road near Neuhof in eastern Hesse. The driver was injured.
There was also an accident with a school bus near Kell am See in the south-east of Rhineland-Palatinate. According to the Trier-Saarburg district administration, six children were injured in the collision with a car, and the bus and car drivers were slightly injured.
Ice and snow have also hampered commuter traffic in Schleswig-Holstein. Several cars and trucks crashed in the areas around Flensburg and Kiel as well as Elsmhorn and Lübeck.
The situation was similar in parts of North Rhine-Westphalia. According to the police, a truck in Gummersbach near Cologne skidded on Tuesday evening when it braked at a traffic light. He caught a 12-year-old crossing the street when the light turned green. The boy was seriously injured.
The police called on drivers in several federal states to drive carefully and slowly according to the weather conditions. According to forecasts by the German Weather Service, there should be more snowfall on Wednesday, which will last until Thursday night.
According to the DWD, there will be repeated showers on Thursday, and some snow may fall at times in the north. The maximum temperatures are between 2 and 6 degrees, in the south up to 15 degrees can be reached. “On Friday, too, things will continue to be rather mixed,” said meteorologist Sonja Stöckle.
For weather experts in Germany, March 1st was the meteorological start of spring: After that, spring lasts from March 1st to May 31st. The astronomical or calendar beginning of spring, on the other hand, is on March 20 this year. At this point, the sun is vertically above the equator and is now moving north. Snowfall in March or April is not uncommon. There had already been many slippery accidents on Tuesday.
It’s not just in Germany that winter has arrived again. In Great Britain, meteorologists registered the coldest night of the year so far: in Kinbrace in northern Scotland, temperatures fell to minus 15.4 degrees Celsius. The weather agency Met Office warned of snow and ice in all parts of the country.
At Bristol Airport in western England, all flights were temporarily stopped on Wednesday due to heavy snowfall. The police called on motorists to refrain from non-essential travel due to dangerous road conditions. Many vehicles, especially in southern England, do not have winter tyres, and when winter sets in there are always numerous accidents.
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