As heavy showers and thunderstorms rolled across southern Germany on Friday, one storm brought a freak hail event to the city of Reutlingen. Though the hailstones were average in size, the amount that fell was remarkable, with up to a foot accumulating in less than an hour. This led to the bizarre sight of snowploughs in August, and more than 250 firefighters and city workers helping to clear the roads.
Afterwards some localised flooding occurred as meltwater flowed into basements and underground car parks, with problems exacerbated by unmelted hailstones blocking drainage systems. Water levels in the Echaz River, which runs through the city centre, rapidly rose by 1.5 metres and briefly burst its banks, though no damage was reported.
In South Korea the 25th World Scout Jamboree was disrupted by adverse weather for a second time. The international youth camp, which is held approximately every four years and attended by tens of thousands of scouts from across the world, is being hosted on the west coast of the Jeonbuk province between 1 and 12 August. However, the start was briefly delayed after flooding from heavy monsoon rains left parts of the campsite without adequate power or water supplies.
After that temperatures climbed and climbed up into the 30s celsius, as part of South Korea’s current heatwave: some delegations have moved to hotels or military bases. Similarly high temperatures are expected for the next few days, but are expected to drop below 30C by Thursday.
However, this respite coincides with the arrival in South Korea of the remnant of Typhoon Khanun, which lashed Japan’s Okinawa islands last week and has since weakened to a tropical storm. As an unusually slow-moving storm, Khanun has the potential to deliver extremely high rainfall totals, with forecasts suggesting south-western Japan and the Korean peninsula could widely see 100mm to 200 mm. As the system tracks farther inland, Khanun looks increasingly likely to bring additional disruption to north-east China, which is already reeling from last week’s massive rainfall.
