WRAL provides forecast support for Germany's 'Wacken Open Air 2025' festival
Wacken Open Air is one of the world's largest heavy metal festivals, and it took place over the last view days in Germany.
Headliners for the 2025 festival included Guns n' Roses, Machine Head, Papa Roach and Gojira.
Other WRAL Top Stories
Bordering the North Sea, this festival can sometimes become the heart of some muddy weather.
That was the case this past Wednesday, when the northern part of Germany received the equivalent of one-to-three inches of rain.
Immediately following that, the festival organizers reached out to WRAL meteorologist, Chris Michaels, to see about providing weather forecasts for the (average of) 85,000 attendees.
While we've dealt with intense heat, Germany is well north of here. Its forecast high temperatures each day were the equivalent of 66-to-70°F. Organizers even posted at one point about the "sweater weather" they were experiencing.
In terms of forecasting weather for this part of the country, it wasn't much different than forecasting here at home.
Michaels says, "All of the same atmospheric dynamics that we track were at play here, from coast-to-land interaction, to how low pressure systems spin in the Northern Hemisphere."
The only difference was forecasting temperatures in °C, compared to °F. And on the first day of the festival, we were having to read rain totals in liters-per-square meter, compared to inches.
Michaels also notes, "When we track upper level temperatures here in the U.S., we do so in Celsius, anyway. Plus, data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting made it simple to do the job that was asked."
You can watch the forecast briefings posted to Michaels' and Wacken's Instagram pages via the three links below.
Copyright 2026 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.