Extremely mild turn of the year expected in Austria on the mountains

In the lowlands it is often much cooler with sometimes dense fog.

In the lowlands south of the main Alpine ridge and in the east and south-east, the new year starts with fog or high fog of varying consistency. Even during the afternoon hours, the chances of fog dissipation remain low. Everywhere else, however, sunny and warm weather prevails, according to the ZAMG.

Usually only thin, high cloud fields adorn the sky on New Year’s Day. In places, a light foehn wind from the south-east to south-west makes itself felt, but it remains slightly windy, especially in the lowlands. Early temperatures between minus three in the valleys of East Tyrol and locally eleven degrees in the foehn Rhine Valley are followed by daily highs of five to 18 degrees, depending on fog or sun.

In Switzerland, meanwhile, one of the warmest turn of the year since measurements began in the mid-19th century is on the horizon. New high temperatures were already registered during the night on New Year’s Eve, for example in Basel, where the thermometer showed 16.7 degrees at 1 a.m. – a record.

Two factors were responsible for the high nocturnal temperatures: On the one hand, extremely warm air reached Switzerland from the south-west. On the other hand, the wind constantly mixed the warm air at altitude with cooler air at the bottom layer. With the wind dropping, the temperature dropped and at 9 a.m. in Basel it was “only” 11.1 degrees.

In Germany, temperature records should be “pulverized” on New Year’s Eve. The German Weather Service (DWD) expects temperatures of up to 20 degrees. Some station thermometers along the Rhine showed 17 degrees early on Saturday. “In the southwest and with foehn support also near the Alps there are up to 20 degrees, on the Upper Rhine even up to 22 degrees,” predicted a meteorologist.