By Magdalena Scharf
Leipzig – The city woke up to –12°C again this winter, and Leipzig responded the way cities do when cold overstays its welcome: fewer cyclists, quieter streets, snow that lingered long enough to stop feeling picturesque and start feeling structural.
Over the past two decades, winters in eastern Germany have become milder on average, with more rain, fewer sustained freezes, and shorter periods of snow cover. This one broke that pattern, not in a single dramatic moment, but through persistence. According to researchers at Germany’s meteorological and climate research institutions (DWD), large parts of Saxony have experienced prolonged below-average temperatures this winter, with snow cover remaining long enough to reinforce cold conditions by reflecting sunlight back into the atmosphere. This feedback effect—well understood in climate science—helps explain why cold spells can deepen once they take hold: It’s not just how cold it gets, it’s how long the cold stays in place.
If climate change is real, many asked, why does this feel like a winter from decades ago? The explanation lies far above Leipzig’s frozen streets. “The Arctic warming — which is happening much faster than the global average — weakens the jet stream. This causes it to meander more and can lead to unusual weather extremes such as cold spells in Europe and North America.” says Dörthe Handorf, an atmospheric physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI).
This winter, the polar vortex—a band of strong winds that normally keeps Arctic air locked in the far north—has weakened. At the same time, the jet stream has taken on a more distorted shape, looping instead of flowing steadily west to east. These changes allow cold Arctic air to spill southward and, crucially, to remain there. Scientists emphasize that none of this contradicts global warming. It reflects how a warming Arctic can destabilize large-scale atmospheric circulation. A warmer system doesn’t behave more smoothly. It behaves more erratically. In other words, climate change is not a simple story of steady warming. It is a story of lost balance.
Public skepticism during cold spells follows a familiar script. Social media fills with jokes. Inboxes fill with messages pointing to frost as evidence against warming. The scientific rebuttal—that single weather events don’t negate long-term trends—is accurate but insufficient. Because the skepticism is not really about data. It’s about lived experience.
Climate reporting has focused heavily on averages: annual temperatures, global means, long-term projections. What it has struggled to convey is volatility—the idea that a warming planet can still produce intense cold, and that such cold may feel sharper precisely because it no longer fits expectation. On Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, café owners report shorter visits and higher heating costs. At tram stops, residents compare this winter to those of the 1980s, measuring the present against memory rather than models. Snow packed along canals in Plagwitz reflects sunlight and keeps temperatures low, turning a weather event into a self-reinforcing system. None of this disproves climate change. All of it illustrates how climate change is actually experienced: locally, unevenly, and often counterintuitively.
Leipzig’s frozen weeks are not a return to the past. They are a symptom of a climate that no longer behaves reliably enough to match memory. Heat records and cold snaps are not opposing narratives; they are chapters in the same one.
If climate journalism is to remain credible, it must move beyond reassurance and correction. It must explain not just what is happening, but why it feels wrong when it happens. Because for most people, climate change is not a line on a chart, but the unsettling realization that even familiar seasons have begun to feel out of place.