Weather station near Berlin registers driest first half of year since 1893

One of Germany’s longest serving weather stations has recorded the driest first half of the year in more than 130 years, said the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). According to PIK, the Potsdam Telegrafenberg station near Berlin is “the only meteorological station in the world with a comprehensive measurement programme that has been running continuously for over 100 years.” and therefore serves as an acknowledged reference point for long-term observations.

Fred Hattermann, hydrologist at PIK, said the station measured 146.8 millimetres of precipitation between the beginning of January and the end of June—the lowest since 1893 and markedly less than the 158.5 millimetres measured during the previously driest period in 1942.

“The long-term average for this location in the first half of the year is around 300 millimetres,” Hattermann said. While January still saw substantial precipitation across the country, these ebbed away in February, almost completely disappeared in March, and have remained below average since. “This is also significant because spring and early summer are the seasons when vegetation grows the most, and therefore has the greatest water requirements,” he added.

According to PIK, agricultural land and forests have already felt the impact of drought conditions in the first half of the year. At the same time, increasing average temperatures across the country mean that water demand will rise, it added.

Groundwater level and forests across Germany had already been affected by lower precipitation levels in a dry spell between 2018 and 2022. While rainier years in 2023 and 2024 helped regulate water levels somewhat, the absence of rainfall in 2025 is likely to return them to below the long-term average again, especially east of the Elbe river, PIK said.

Already among the driest regions of the country, much of northeastern Germany, where Berlin is located, is expected to experience even drier conditions in the future as global warming shifts precipitation patterns and local temperature averages rise.