Thousands of flashes and hundreds of operations during storms over the Rhine-Main area

Cars drive through a large puddle on the Donnersbergring in Darmstadt.

Severe storms with heavy rain caused flooded streets and flooded basements, especially in the Rhine-Main area. Handling was discontinued at Frankfurt Airport.

 The fire brigade responded to hundreds of operations. Heavy thunderstorms swept over Hesse on Wednesday evening. Between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., the hr weather department reported rainfall of up to 60 liters per square meter, for example at Frankfurt Airport. In Raunheim (Groß-Gerau) about 58 liters per square meter came down within two hours, in Griesheim up to 50 liters.

Some of these amounts of rain fell in 20 to 30 minutes. The meteorologists registered 25,289 flashes over Rhein-Main between 8.40 p.m. and 9.40 p.m. For comparison: In the whole of 2022, 11,566 lightning bolts were measured throughout Hesse. In Griesheim, there were gusts of wind of 81 kilometers per hour, in Offenbach 71 kilometers per hour were reached.

Passengers cannot leave the plane

Because of the heavy rainfall, the runway at Frankfurt Airport was temporarily flooded, as the airport operator Fraport confirmed in the evening. Arriving passengers could not leave their machines. For example, the passengers on the Lufthansa plane LH1283 from Athens, which landed at 8.30 p.m., were only able to leave their plane around 11 p.m., as passenger René Zimmermann from Münzenberg confirmed to hr.

Ground handling at the airport was completely stopped for more than two hours, said an airport spokesman. Due to the late resumption of handling, 34 machines could not have taken off in time. Other flights had already been canceled by the airlines themselves.

A spokeswoman for Fraport said there were 90 flight cancellations throughout the day. 23 planned arrivals were also diverted to other airports due to the night flight ban. According to initial estimates by the airport, a four-digit number of passengers were affected by the problems. Fraport announced that adjustments to the flight schedule should therefore be expected on Thursday.

South station full

The Frankfurt fire brigade reported numerous weather-related operations. Many subways, suburban trains, and trams had to stop operating in the city area. In the Sachsenhausen district, the water penetrated the southern station. Subway traffic was then completely stopped, and the trains only ran again on Thursday morning. Lines U1, U2, U3 and U8 were affected.

Everywhere in the city, streets and many basements were underwater. The Frankfurt fire brigade registered a total of over 500 calls.

Fallen trees, landslides, flooded basements

The police in Offenbach reported 30 operations involving trees on streets and a landslide on a country road in Jossgrund (Main-Kinzig). Nobody was injured. Hanau was also affected by the storm. The local fire brigade spoke of more than 50 missions.

In Bad Nauheim (Wetterau), storm drains pushed up and basements flooded causing action. "Some manhole covers are on the street," warned the fire department. In Groß-Umstadt (Darmstadt-Dieburg), the streets were partially flooded. There were minor landslides. The fire brigade in Fulda also reported frequent operations due to the storm. Lightning struck a family home in Alsfeld (Vogelsberg), causing damage estimated at around 10,000 euros, the police said in the morning.

In the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, the central control center registered 520 requests for help from the population between Wednesday 8:45 p.m. and Thursday 8:00 a.m. Since that meant a significant increase in work compared to a regular evening, the staff had to be increased. "In the city of Weiterstadt alone, the volunteers had to deal with 180 deployment sites."

There is still a risk of storms

The uncomfortable weather mix will remain on Thursday. Again, there is potential for severe weather. The temperatures: 22 to 29 degrees.

The start of the weekend on Friday will also be warm and muggy, but it will remain dry. At the weekend the thunderstorms will return, coupled with a muggy and very high heat load. Then even up to 35 degrees are possible.