Violent storm at the beginning of the year: chaos in ferry and rail traffic!

On New Year's Day 2025, Northern Germany experienced a stormy and rainy start into the new year. The uncomfortable weather conditions led to considerable disabilities in ferry and rail traffic. The meteorological predictions provided for storm gusts in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg for the day, at speeds on the North Sea coast of up to 100 km/h and in Hamburg between 65 and 75 km/h, such as the mopo reported.

The Hamburg fire brigade had to record about 40 missions due to numerous storm damage. Ferries were badly affected: the ferry connections of the shipping company Cassen Eils from Cuxhaven to Helgoland were canceled due to the weather, as did the ferry traffic on the Föhr-Amrum line until afternoon. Also on the connection between Sylt and the mainland, only one of the two ships was in use. In addition, New Year's bathing events in Büsum and Wenningstedt-Braderup had to be canceled, while the tower lights planned for Warnemünde could not take place due to the storm warning.

weather warnings and traffic disruptions

The low pressure area was not only noticeable in ferry traffic; Deutsche Bahn also had to cancel several trains for the section between Westerland and Hamburg-Altona because a tree had fallen onto the tracks. In addition, failures of the lanes occurred on the chunk, such as ndr reported. The overhead line between Ahrensburg and Hamburg-Rahlstedt was also affected and had to be repaired.

weather services continue to warn of heavy storms and heavy rain. For this purpose, an increase in the flood at the St. Pauli Fischmarkt is expected to up to 1.5 meters above the middle flood. Recent predictions indicate that the wind should weaken significantly from Thursday, but stormy gusts are still possible on the coasts. The weatherproof maximum temperatures were expected between 0 and 5 degrees, while the last few days this week are changeable with sun, clouds and individual snow showers.