With no snow amid days of rain, a group of Bavarians turned to bales of hay to build the giant snowman that has risen annually on a village market square in southern Germany for more than 35 years.
A farmer from a nearby village provided 30 bales of hay, which the builders wrapped in white foil to build the snowman, dubbed Jakob, on the square in Bischofsgrün, located not far from the city of Beyreuth.
It's the first time in the event's history that local volunteers were unable to find enough snow to build the snowman, according to Wilhelm Zapf of the town's tourist information office.
Every year since 1986, volunteers have built up a large pile of snow ahead of the Carnival festivities leading up to Shrove Tuesday, sometimes hiking to the top of nearby mountains to gather snow in warmer years.
The only time the event has been cancelled was in 2021 during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Zapf said.
But this year, snow was in extremely short supply even on the peaks of the Ochsenkopf and Schneeberg, local mountains that are more than 1,000 metres tall.
But the villagers didn't want to cancel the now traditional events that accompany the snowman, either, so they came up with the idea of using haybales instead.
With his hat, buttons and scarf, Jakob looked more or less just like his snowy predecessors from previous years. But he was decidedly shorter than the typical 12 metres, standing only about eight metres high.