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The land of schizophrenic weather

I remember the first time I came to Munich, about two years ago now, I was stunned at how quickly and drastically the weather patterns could change.

I still have a vivid memory of drinking in a beer garden with some friends, enjoying the glorious late July sunshine in the park, when hordes of patrons suddenly started scrambling for their bikes and heading home. Whole tables were freed up in a matter of minutes. (I think empty tables in a beer garden in July is a sign of the apocalypse.) My friends and I thought that maybe the beer garden was closing soon, but quickly realized the absurdity of such a notion.

Within minutes black clouds rolled in overhead and there was an epic downpour. We tried to join the masses huddling under the safety of the Chinese Tower in the beer garden, but the crowd was packed so tightly we had to press against people to avoid the sheets of water cascading off the upper levels, making a really cool waterfall inches from our chests.

Check out this picture, taken earlier this year, on an afternoon that couldn’t decide whether to be pleasant or apocalyptic.

This morning, Jesse comes knocks on my door and wakes me. I told whoever it was to come on in, and when Jesse sees me still in bed, he asks whether I missed the storm this morning. Upon hearing that yes, I did miss it, he asks again in disbelief, describing the intensity of the storm, and how there’s no way I could have slept through it. He caught his tongue on that last part, as everybody here knows I can sleep through just about anything.

Apparently there were powerful winds beating the building all day, following by pouring rain, then snow for about 10 minutes, and finally glorious sunshine. I got up and joined him on my balcony and sure enough, there was snow in the courtyard, which melted quickly in the golden daylight and vanished within the hour.

I thought this was an interesting occurrence. Later this afternoon, however, I learned that Germany had a freaking hurricane today. This makes sense. Last night, while watching a movie in my room with a bunch of friends, the wind started to pick up. It got so bad that the pair of jeans I had hanging on a nail out on my balcony were completely horizontal, hanging by a single beltloop. More pictures of the devastation here (article in German).

Fortunately, being all the way at the south of Germany, there’s no discernible damage here. But I watched the news with a friend today, and there’s bad flooding and destruction up north.

Oh, well. I’ll go back to enjoying this tranquil Bavarian evening, balcony doors open and my curtains stirring softly.