Midsummer weather conditions are occasionally interrupted by thunderstorms in northern Germany. These occur either as isolated thermal thunderstorms or as approaching weather fronts with organized squall lines. Such a thunderstorm front passed across northern Germany...
The ice-age-shaped Schaalsee stretches along the former inner-German border between Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. With a length of 14 km (8.7 miles) and a width of up to 5.4 km (3.4 miles), it is one of the deepest lakes in northern Germany, reaching...
The beech forests of Kellerwald National Park near Kassel belong to the largest contiguous beech forests in Central Europe. Their origins date back to the time after the last ice age, about 12,000 years ago, when the glaciers retreated northward and the forests once...
Mature beech trees reach heights of 30 to 45 meters and can live for 300 years or more. Their mighty crowns form a dense canopy that cloaks the forest floor in deep shadow. Hardly a ray of sunlight reaches it, creating a cool and humid forest climate. For young beech...
Until 10,000 years ago, northern Germany bordered the glacial margin of the Nordic ice cap. At this time in the Pleistocene, so much water was stored as ice in the glacial system, which was up to three kilometers thick, that sea level was about 130 meters (427 feet)...
