Hailstorm from Munich

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The hailstorm in Munich was a storm in southern Bavaria and especially in Munich on July 12, 1984. The event caused the greatest damage to the German insurance industry to date .

Emergence

After a heat wave , on July 11, 1984, a cold front moved from the west over southern Germany. This had previously led to storms in France and western Germany. In Munich, however, it was already weakened and only led to a cooling without precipitation. The next day there was a damp but not too warm layer of air up to 2200 m, above it tropical warm air. Even further up, the air cooled greatly. Due to a high pressure area coming from the west, the humid air began to rise, favored by strong solar radiation and its humidity, and cumulus clouds formed .

Course of the storm

The first relatively harmless hail fell around 6 p.m. in Ravensburg . The intensifying thunderstorm cluster migrated north-east, caused damage to cars and houses in the area around Landsberg am Lech around 7 p.m. and reached the west of Munich shortly before 8 p.m. Presumably intensified by warm, humid air over the lakes Ammersee and Starnberger See in front of the city and extremely hot air overlying the city itself, the hailstorm caused great damage in southeastern parts of Munich (especially Trudering, Riem and Haar). The north was hardly affected. Therefore z. B. the tent roof of the Olympic Stadium is not damaged.

The slowly weakening storm moved further east across the northern district of Ebersberg , and here specifically Anzing for massively from. T. tennis ball-sized hail was hit along the German-Austrian border, towards the Czech Republic. The entire track of the cell was extremely long at around 300 km.

In Munich, the hailstorm lasted between 20 and 30 minutes, the entire storm over the city around two and a half hours. The largest detected hailstone had a diameter of 9.5 cm and a weight of about 300 g. However, it is likely that even larger grains fell. The storm left a layer of hail up to 20 cm high, which only thawed the next day. The fire brigades had to deal with over 3800 missions.

consequences

Personal injury

Several hundred people were injured, some seriously. There were no direct fatalities, but several people died from heart attacks or during the clean-up work.

Property damage

Within a short time, more than 70,000 buildings were damaged. More than 200,000 vehicles were dented to a previously unknown extent. There was also damage to aircraft at Munich-Riem and Oberpfaffenhofen airports . Airplanes were damaged and smaller ones even completely destroyed. The Munich tram had to cease operations on several lines because overhead lines were damaged or points blocked. In addition, the hail destroyed various agricultural areas and hindered traffic. The storm caused total damage of 3 billion DM, 1.5 billion of which were insured. Broken down according to the areas, the following picture emerged:

Damage on Insured damage
Agriculture, gardens 080 million DM
Residential buildings, household items 350 million DM
Car 800 million DM
aviation 180 million DM

See also

swell

Web links