Germany having 'one of the coldest winters in 100 years'

The cold has so far cost four people their lives and caused even the Muritzsee [a large lake] to freeze up.

One of the coldest winters in 100 years has cost Germany more lives. At minus 16 degrees a homeless man in Rhineland-Palatinate froze to death. Police said yersterday that the 58-year-old had for two years lived with a 43-year-old in a tent.

On Friday morning, a 53-year old Berliner was fished out dead from a hole in the ice in the Elde in Grabow (District Ludwigslust). According to the police at directorate Schwerin, the man's car was found with the key still in the ignition on the bridge of the federal 5th

In Nidda a man who lived in a nursing home became a victim of the cold, according to the police in Friedberg. The corpse of a man who on Sunday ran away from home, was found on Monday. Only now it has been established that he froze to death. On Monday in Weimar a demented 77 - year-old who had got lost froze to death.....

According to the German Weather Service (DWD), this is one of the coldest winters of the past 100 years. It is quite rare that such low temperatures as in the past days were recorded, the DWD meteorologist Thomas Schmidt said yesterday. The weather service Meteomedia reported yesterday a temperature of minus 34.6 degrees at the Funtensee in the Bavarian Alps. It was there in Christmas 2001, that the lowest temperature so far in Germany was recorded -- at minus 45.9 degrees Celsius, .

For the first time in years the Mueritz lake in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania -- with 11,700 hectares of Germany's largest lake scenery -- was again completely covered with ice. In northern Germany ice increasingly hampered inland ship movements: The Elbe was from Friday morning closed to shipping above Hamburg because of a thick blanket of ice.

More here. (Quick translation by JR)

Posted by John Ray.