Muensterland snow chaos
The Münsterland snow chaos on the 1st Advent weekend in 2005 was a weather event that hit the Münsterland , Tecklenburger Land , Ruhr area , Osnabrücker Land , Bergisches Land and southern Emsland from November 25, 2005 and lasted for several days. The east of the Netherlands was also affected. The name Münsterländer Schneechaos goes back to the German Weather Service .
meteorology
It was triggered by snowfalls of over 50 cm, which are unusually high for these regions . The classification as severe weather with snowfall with more than 10 cm of fresh snow in six or more than 15 cm in twelve hours was far exceeded.
On November 24th, a strong high with cold, wet air determined the weather in northern Germany. Meanwhile, the Thorsten deep formed in the North Sea . It drew cold and very wet polar sea air to Germany . During the course of November 25, this low reached storm lows .
On November 25th around 6 a.m., isolated snowfalls began in northern Germany, but some of them were still very weak and localized. In the course of the morning it began to snow heavily. Up to 20 cm of snow fell by lunchtime, which severely impaired traffic. The snowfall continued with undiminished strength until evening. During the night of November 26th, the snowfall subsided somewhat in some areas. Only at noon to early evening did the snow fall across the board. In some places, extremely wet snow had fallen to over 50 cm, which, due to its wetness, was very heavy and adhered well. This weather situation had a few peculiarities: At temperatures around freezing point, long-lasting heavy snowfalls occurred due to the very slow shift of the storm depression Thorsten . The trees and bushes were still leafy due to the mild autumn. This led to snow breakage. The wind in interaction with the wet snow led to the icing of power lines with a layer of ice sometimes several centimeters thick. The heavier and heavier power lines and the stormy winds collapsed high-voltage pylons. The development of the weather with storms and repeated or longer-lasting wet snowfalls could be predicted at an early stage, but the prognosis in this weather situation was limited because the transition area between rain, sleet and wet snowfall was very close to one another.
Tree damage
The unusually large amount of sticky snow caused considerable damage to many trees and shrubs from snow breakage . In addition to the evergreen plants, the oaks were particularly affected because most of them were still fully leafy at the time. Many thick branches broke off, tree tops fell to the ground, and whole tree trunks broke. Often thin trees were bent to the ground and could not stand up completely again later, so that they can still witness the event years later.
Traffic disruption
The extreme depth of snow led to severe disabilities in road traffic. This was particularly noticeable in the mountainous Osnabrück and Tecklenburger Lands. On steep stretches such as federal road 219 near Dörenthe, broken down trucks blocked the pass road at the Dörenther cliffs .
Local public transport collapsed. The trains and buses were late or not at all due to the depth of snow. On the A1 , the traffic jammed in both directions. It was also not possible to move forward on the A 3 , A 4 , A 5 , A 30 , A 31 , A 33 and A 45 motorways . Some of the trapped drivers had to wait several hours to be released from their position and were provided with blankets and hot drinks by the Red Cross . Numerous commuters spent the night in emergency shelters because their hometown could not be reached by car or train. In Münster, for example, the air raid shelter under the main train station was opened as an emergency shelter.
The travelers stranded at Osnabrück main station were accommodated in the Schinkel comprehensive school to spend the night . The Osnabrück Hotel Remarque accommodated travelers in the suitcase depot and even in the hotel sauna due to overcrowding due to the weather.
By Friday evening, 1,200 accidents had already occurred. If you add the accidents on Saturday, the property damage amounts to 3.16 million euros. A delivery driver for the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung died in a traffic accident in Emsland.
There were also major delays at Münster / Osnabrück Airport . Air traffic could no longer be maintained. In rail traffic, 31 train connections in the region were completely canceled and 260 trains were delayed by a total of 117 hours.
Power failure
Some electricity pylons could no longer bear the weight of the heavy snow on the lines and buckled. Fallen branches led to broken lines and short circuits. According to RWE, around 250,000 people in 25 communities were affected by the blackout . For the districts Steinfurt and Borken was disaster alarm detected. Even four days after the snowfall ended, not all locations were reconnected to the power grid. The Bundeswehr and the technical relief organization set up a temporary power supply in some places. The municipalities of Metelen , Ochtrup , Vreden , Laer and Schöppingen in the Münsterland and the municipality of Spelle in the Emsland were hit particularly hard .
In the uranium enrichment plant in Gronau there was a power outage lasting several days. Thanks to the emergency power supply from diesel generators used there, the system was shut down according to the fail-safe principle, while the temperature and pressure conditions were regulated in such a way that clogging of the pipes with solidified uranium hexafluoride was avoided. Monitoring systems could continue to be operated with battery support.
Repairing the power lines and clearing the streets of broken branches sometimes dragged on for weeks. The total damage was put at 100 million euros.
Nine months after the power outage, media reports appeared about a noticeable increase in births in the affected area, which, however, does not correspond to the facts and at best is due to normal fluctuations. Regardless of this, the electricity supplier RWE paid families whose children were born in the region between 10 and 25 August 2006 a one-time payment of 300 euros.
- Power failure photos
Overhead line collapsed under the weight of thick layers of ice
Steel framework overhead line mast , lying bent
Fire brigade units from Bonn on November 27th with power generators on the way to Ochtrup
Discussion about electricity pole steel
In mid-December 2005, RWE admitted that it had been using a large part of the 44,000 electricity pylons in its high and extra-high voltage network for more than 65 years. 10,300 of the high voltage pylons were erected before 1940. RWE pointed out that there were many very old electricity pylons across Europe. Many of them were made of Thomas steel, which was brittle due to its high nitrogen content and therefore easily breakable .
In 2003, RWE launched a high-voltage network refurbishment program worth 550 million euros. The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Economics wrote to 90 network operators in the state with the question of how many masts made of Thomasstahl they had. 39 of them answered; seven of the 39 declared to have such masts. At E.ON Westfalen Weser , one of the largest electricity suppliers in North Rhine-Westphalia, two thirds of its 1,800 masts were made of Thomas steel. NRW Economics Minister Christa Thoben (CDU) described the restructuring efforts of the network operators as "completely inadequate". Thomasstahl dominated the 1960s and was still used in the 1970s. The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing later investigated on behalf of the Federal Network Agency how the blackout in the Münsterland could come about. From 2002 to 2010, RWE renovated around 60 percent of its 44,000 electricity pylons.
Building damage
The unusually high snow load also occasionally caused damage to buildings. Commercial halls with flat roofs or low roof slopes were particularly affected, as was the Rheiner Zoo . In some cases roof structures collapsed, others were freed from the snow masses with the help of the fire brigades . From Saturday afternoon, when the thaw began, there were also more roof avalanches . Because snow guards are practically nowhere to be found in the Münsterland, snow boards often slipped unhindered from roofs and damaged gutters or lower roofs.
U16 international soccer match Germany - Netherlands
On Friday, at the beginning of the snowstorm, an international match between the U16 and the Netherlands took place in Rheine . Around 5000 spectators, mostly school classes from the Steinfurt district , were in the stadium. Even before the half-time break, the snow drift increased and almost all spectators fled the sports facility. About 30 students had to receive emergency medical care because of hypothermia . The game itself ended regularly with 2: 1.
Individual evidence
- ↑ T. Deutschländer, B. Wichura: The Münsterland snow chaos on the 1st weekend in Advent 2005. In: Deutscher Wetterdienst: Klimastatusbericht 2005. P. 163–167 (PDF; 392 kB).
- ↑ When the Osnabrück region sank in the snow ten years ago. In: New Osnabrück Newspaper. November 21, 2015, accessed October 29, 2015.
- ↑ Reactor Safety Commission / Disposal Commission: ESK stress test for systems and facilities for supply and disposal in Germany . Ed .: Federal Office for Radiation Protection. Part 1: Fuel supply systems, interim storage facilities for irradiated fuel elements and heat-generating radioactive waste, systems for treating irradiated fuel elements, March 14, 2013 ( entsorgungskommission.de [PDF]).
- ↑ Snow chaos in Münsterland - baby boom follows power failure. In: stern.de , accessed on January 12, 2011
- ↑ [1] , via archive.org, accessed on May 25, 2011.
- ↑ Miracles, Myths and Fairy Tales in Reproductive Medicine. In: kup.at . Accessed on May 24, 2011 (PDF; 423 kB).
- ↑ The snow babies are here. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: rp-online.de . Retrieved January 12, 2011.
- ↑ Thousands of power poles from the pre-war period. In: Spiegel Online . December 14, 2005.
- ↑ Electricity pylons made of brittle Thomasstahl in NRW. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: rp-online.de . June 26, 2006.
- ↑ Ewald B. Schulte: Material defects in electricity pylons. In: berliner-zeitung.de . April 22, 2006.
- ↑ Damage analysis on broken electricity pylons in the Münsterland. Federal Network Agency, accessed on November 24, 2018 .
- ↑ Federal Office for Materials Research: Authority accuses RWE of poor maintenance. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 17, 2010.
- ↑ Aviary collapsed under the load of snow. ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: westline.de (article no longer available).
- ↑ Newspaper report from the U16 soccer game Germany - Netherlands in Rheine ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: westline.de (article no longer available).
- ↑ A lot of work for the emergency doctor. ( Memento of the original from September 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: westline.de (article no longer available).
