Photo Gallery Germany's Crazy Summer
A full beach on the Baltic island of Usedom on June 30. The early summer was extremely hot in Germany and much of Europe.
Elephants at Dresden Zoo needed a helping hand to cool down.
Cracked, dried out soil in a field in the state of Brandenburg near Berlin on June 29. Forest fire warnings were issued for large parts of eastern Germany because of the drought.
The extreme heat in July led to the failure of air conditioning systems on a number of high-speed ICE trains, and scores of passengers collapsed from heat exhaustion as a result. High-school students were taken off an affected train and received medical treatment at Bielefeld station on July 10. Railway operator Deutsche Bahn ended up paying compensation to thousands of passengers.
Violent thunderstorms brought only temporary relief. On July 12, several trees collapsed in high winds and severely damaged a 160-meter slide in Waldkirch in southern Germany.
A tornado wreaked havoc on the tiny German North sea island of Helgoland on July 12. Eight people were injured, two of them seriously.
The level of the Elbe river at Dresden sank to just 87 centimeters, a fraction of the normal level of 2.30 meters. This was on July 12. It was a very different story a month later.
On August 16, heavy rain and storms sent the Elbe's river level soaring. It was the wettest August in Germany since records started being kept in 1881.
A house in Chemnitz near the German border with the Czech Republic on August 7. Rapidly rising water levels claimed several lives.
A young man chose to brave the water on his bicycle in Chemnitz .
Further east, the town of Zittau was also hit.
The village of Chrastava in the Czech Republic. Thousands of inhabitants had to be evacuated.
Oesede near the German city of Osnabrück on August 27. Rainfall at 291 liters per square meter was 21 percent above average this summer due to a sodden August in which precipitation was 157 liters, more than twice the long-term average for the month.
