Image: Alois Litzlbauer
It was just one of many temperature records set across Austria. “January 2023 was 2.6 degrees above the mean of the climate period 1991 to 2020 in the lowlands of Austria, on the mountains by 0.3 degrees,” says Alexander Orlik, climatologist at Geosphere Austria (formerly ZAMG). This makes January the eighth warmest in the valleys in the 256-year history of measurements.
However, this was not due to the many hours of sunshine: the area average was 30 percent below the climate average. There has not been so little sun in January for ten years. While it was clearly too dry in the west and north, an above-average amount of rain and snow was recorded in the south. Averaged over the entire country, there was at least 20 percent more precipitation in January than the long-term average.
Four instead of 97 centimeters
The amounts of fresh snow varied greatly from region to region. The west was disadvantaged because instead of 97 centimeters, which would be statistically expected in Seefeld in Tyrol in an average January, there was only four centimeters of fresh snow. In the south, on the other hand, it snowed extensively in some regions.
In Ferlach in Carinthia, for example, 89 centimeters of fresh snow were registered, in an average January it is usually “only” 20 centimeters there. Depending on the location, the total amount of fresh snow in Carinthia was 50 to 300 percent higher than the average for 1991-2020.
However, since it only became significantly wintry from the middle of the month, the number of snow cover days in Carinthia was also below average – as in the other federal states.
Source: Nachrichten
