Dryness and heating heat: Austria's unusual winter 2024/25

Dryness and heating heat: Austria's unusual winter 2024/25

Wien, Österreich - Austria is experiencing a record -breaking winter this year characterized by extreme weather phenomena. According to the current reports of the Kleine Zeitung href = "https://www.zamg.ac.at/cms/klima/news/einer-der-zwewaermsten-winter-der-messchichte"> Geosphere Austria is the winter 2023/24 one of the warmest in the history of the weather. The temperatures in the lowlands were 2.8 degrees above the average of the standard period from 1991 to 2020, which increases the winter almost to the same record stand as in 2006/07. February in particular stands out as the warmest February of all time.

The rainfall is alarming in many regions. The weather station in Vienna Hohe Warte registered only 36 millimeters of precipitation until February 25, which positioned it on the border with the dryness records of 1850/51. Only 35 millimeters fell in Graz. The prediction shows that the winter 2023/24 could bring about 50 percent more precipitation than the average, especially in higher ones. But the combination of high temperatures and a lot of precipitation means that there is hardly any snow in low layers and the days with snow blankets have decreased by 50 percent.

snow and sun lack on record course

The climate scientist Alexander Orlik emphasizes that the precipitation in the mountains mainly consist of rain and not of snow, which could reflect the future snow distribution in Austria. In the mountains above 1,500 meters there was an average snow situation, while there was so little snow in the deep locations that it melted quickly. On average, the sun had shone 15 percent longer than in the period from 1991 to 2020, which makes this winter one of the sunniest in years.

The comparison to past winters illustrates that the current weather conditions are unprecedented. According to the surveys, the winter of 2023/24 after 2022/23 is already the third in a row, which has maximum values in the temperatures. In the Alps there was regional differences in the sunshine duration, which vary between 10 and 30 percent. This extreme weather is not only remarkable, but also urgently puts the challenges of climate change in the foreground.