Winter 2025 2026 weather Germany: Winter is over, and opinions diverge. Those living in Berlin remember icy weeks in January with snow cover on the ground. Those in the Ruhr area experienced a largely average winter. How was winter 2025/26 really, compared to the year before?
Winter 2024/25 was mild by historical standards. December 2024 brought some cold spells, but overall the season was around 1.5 degrees above the 1991-2020 reference mean. January and February 2025 were dominated by westerly Atlantic airflows, which brought mild temperatures and rain rather than snow. For Berlin this meant frost days were rare and snowfall was largely absent. A typical mild winter, the kind that has become more common in recent years.
Winter 2025/26 opened differently. In January 2026 a sharp cold snap hit eastern and central Germany. Berlin experienced several consecutive days with temperatures below minus five degrees Celsius, with a genuine snow cover lasting several weeks. This kind of persistent cold has been unusual for German winters in recent years. February 2026, however, quickly normalized, with temperatures returning to seasonal averages.
The contrast between west and east is striking. Berlin and eastern Germany experienced the most pronounced cold snap. Hamburg and the northwest stayed milder, with the North Sea's maritime influence moderating temperatures and preventing the hard frosts of the east. Cologne and the Rhine region had a winter 2025/26 that felt largely unremarkable overall, with predominantly wet and grey but not particularly cold days.
Overall, the meteorological winter (December 2025 to February 2026) for Germany came in roughly at the 1991-2020 reference mean. This makes it feel colder than the recent run of mild winters, but it is not a cold winter by historical standards. The perception of cold is relative: after several exceptionally mild winters, an average winter already feels cold. That is not a climate observation but psychology.
Use the tool below to compare Berlin in the meteorological winter 2024/25 (December to February) directly with winter 2025/26. The data shows the temperature difference day by day. For Hamburg or Cologne, the city pages offer prepared comparisons: /en/compare/hamburg and /en/compare/koeln. Each city page provides historical data and direct comparisons.
Both winters remain warmer than the 1961-1990 reference mean. The long-term warming trend is clearly visible, even when individual winters appear cool. The key question is no longer whether winters are warming but how variable they will become. A pattern is emerging: mild winters with occasional cold spells that are regionally limited and normalize quickly. Winter 2025/26, with its Berlin January cold snap and the mild year before it, is a fitting example.