Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

WEATHER

‘Siberian cold’: Austria’s icy spell to continue with double-digit minus temperatures this weekend

Austria was in the grip of a period of sub-zero weather on Friday with the big chill forecast to continue over the weekend. Thermometers could dip well below minus 20C.

Published: 12 February 2021 16:06 CET
'Siberian cold': Austria's icy spell to continue with double-digit minus temperatures this weekend
People walk in front of the snow-covered memorial of Empress Maria Theresa. Photo: ALEX HALADA / AFP

Austria has been hit by icy cold temperatures for much of the week.

Temperatures on Friday morning dipped to -22C in Dobersberg, a low lying town near the German border in the north east. 

The mercury was expected to rise slightly throughout the day to a cool -16C tonight.

The icy temperatures in the low-lying provinces of Bergenland, Carinthia and Styria felt much colder than the thermometer readings due to gusting winds of up to 40km/h.

Dobersberg’s low was expected to be matched on Friday night in St Jakob in Defereggen which stands at 1,400m altitude in mountainous East Tyrol near the Italian border.

On Saturday night, the temperature could plummet to -24C.

The cold temperatures are thanks to a blanket of cold air lying over central and eastern Europe, the result of a high pressure area centred on Norway. 

Vienna remained at a relatively balmy -10C on Friday morning despite being less than two hours from frigid Dobersberg.

Reports from the ground record real temperatures closer to minus six.

The record books have still to be challenged. The longest run of consecutive days below freezing in Vienna was 48, which took place in the winter of 1890/91.

In more recent times, the longest run was 14 days in January 2012.

The same year Tannheim in Tyrol, which lies at just over a thousand metres, hit  -28.9C.

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

WEATHER

After mini tornado and floods should Austria expect a summer of extremes?

Extreme weather events have become more common and more dangerous worldwide. This week Austria experienced some of its own extreme weather with thunderstorms and even a 'small' tornado hitting the country.

Published: 22 May 2024 17:27 CEST
After mini tornado and floods should Austria expect a summer of extremes?

Heavy rainfall led to flooded cellars and muddy roads in Lower Austria on Tuesday afternoon.

In Styria, Graz residents recorded what seemed to be a tornado in the city (the head of the Styrian meteorological agency later confirmed a “small” tornado there), with large amounts of rainfall causing havoc.

Austria’s meteorological institute Geosphere Austria had already warned of thunderstorms, some of them heavy, moving north through the country—an alert that included the possibility of landslides and flooding. 

The warnings have been plentiful. Recently, experts alerted that global warming would make extreme weather events much more frequent and stronger, as The Local reported.

Summers, in particular, could see torrential downpours, hail storms as well as heat waves. 

Four heatwaves occurred in 2023, two of which lasted an unusually long time, lasting up to 18 days (July) and 16 days (August).

READ ALSO: How to protect yourself during storm season in Austria

So what about this summer?

There is nothing to indicate that people in Austria will have some relief this summer.

In fact, it has been a warmer than average year so far, with record temperatures throughout. According to Geosphere Austria, the recent winter was one of the two warmest on record.

February followed the trend, and it was the hottest in Austrian history. Parts of Austria also saw record heat in March, while there was “summer in April” in the Alpine country. GeoSphere Austria expects the country to be heading towards a hotter summer season also in 2024. 

Already in June, the probability of above-average temperatures is 60 percent.

In July, above-average temperatures will occur in about 60 percent of the cases. The probability of average temperatures is 20 percent, the same as the chance of below-average temperatures. 

The probability of above-average temperatures in August is just under 80 percent. Average temperatures occur in about a quarter of the cases, and the likelihood of below-average temperatures is less than 10 percent.

READ ALSO: What is Austria’s official emergency-warning phone app and do I need it?

The institute does point out that a seasonal forecast is not an exact forecast in the sense of a 3-day overview but a “rough estimate of the average temperatures conditions in the Eastern Alps”. 

It may seem counterintuitive to think that Austria could be heading for a summer of drought and heavy rains. Still, experts explain that the hotter temperatures make extreme events more likely.

And Austria is more affected by warming than the global average, mainly because it is located in the middle of the continent, and land masses warm up faster than oceans. 

Because of that, the Alpine Republic has already been 2C warmer on average over the last 30 years, almost twice as much as the global temperature increase compared to pre-industrial times.

SHOW COMMENTS