Lightning in Berlin and Brandenburg: decline despite thunderstorms!

Lightning in Berlin and Brandenburg: decline despite thunderstorms!

In 2024, fewer lightning strikes were registered in Berlin and Brandenburg than usual. According to the lightning detection company Nowcast, there were 132,000 lightning strikes with a current intensity of at least 5 kA in Brandenburg. This represents a decrease of around 6 percent compared to the ten-year average (2014-2023). 3,500 lightning strikes were recorded in Berlin, which is around 20 percent fewer than the ten-year average.

In a nationwide comparison, Brandenburg takes 5th place in terms of the number of lightning strikes. Bavaria leads the statistics with 357,000 lightning discharges and an increase of 15 percent, followed by Lower Saxony with 223,000 and Baden-Württemberg with 163,000 lightning strikes. What is particularly noticeable is that Berlin is in second-to-last place in the lightning ranking, ahead of Bremen.

Regional lightning events and weather events

The busiest month in Germany was June, in which around 460,000 discharges were registered. In addition, June 27th was documented as the day with the most lightning, with strong thunderstorms sweeping across the country. In total, there were more than 1.5 million lightning strikes with at least 5 kA in Germany in 2024, the highest number since 2018 World reported.

Particularly strong lightning discharges were also recorded. For example, residents of Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice experienced a lightning bolt with an impressive current of 190,000 amperes on a July night. Normal lightning, on the other hand, reaches average current strengths of around 10,000 to 40,000 amperes.

In summary, it can be seen that 2024 was an atypical lightning season overall in Berlin and Brandenburg, although there was a sharp increase in lightning strikes across Germany. Facts about this can be found in the report by rbb24.