State of emergency: This is how turbulent the first winter weekend was

2023-12-03 17:00:00

The onset of winter on Friday was sudden and violent. Over the course of Saturday, the consequences of the ongoing snowfall were drastically evident: numerous accidents, towns cut off from the environment, collapsed public transport, power outages and snapped trees. The situation calmed down on Sunday.

Picture gallery: Peace after the snow chaos: clean-up work on Sunday

(Photo: Daniel Scharinger (Daniel Scharinger)) Bild 1/42

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Readers found out about snow conditions, road closures, public transport and current weather warnings on the OÖNachrichten homepage. An overview.

Meteorologists had warned: Winter will come to the country at the weekend – nachrichten.at reported. GeoSpehre Austria also predicted on Thursday that the snowfall would be heavy and persistent. “This can definitely be a challenge for the winter services,” said Alexander Ohms in an interview with OÖN on Thursday.

More than 1000 fire brigade operations

Instead of the predicted 15 centimeters of fresh snow in the central area, a full 20 centimeters or more fell from the sky within a few hours. There were countless accidents on icy roads and due to branches falling due to the snow load, most of them on Saturday night. The fire brigades in Upper Austria had to go out to help more than 1,000 times.

Photo gallery: Snow claimed fire brigades throughout Upper Austria

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Due to the massive snowfall, there were disruptions to public transport. Many train routes were interrupted, and buses in the central area experienced delays and cancellations.

Trips on the Linzer Pöstlingbergbahn and the Mühlkreisbahn were also not possible for some hours due to fallen branches. All public transport in Linz is now running regularly again, although there are occasional delays.

More than 1000 missions by the Upper Austrian fire brigades
Picture: LFK

The Braunau district was particularly hard hit, with countless road closures and households without electricity.

Picture gallery: Exceptional situation: The Braunau district is drowning in snow

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Video messages from the local editorial team

The local editors of the OÖNachrichten gave an overview of the snow situation in the country on Saturday – and reported back with short videos from the respective regions.

The situation worsened further in the afternoon. Damage to power lines meant that 40,000 households in Upper Austria had to make do without electricity on Saturday. Trees buckled under the weight of snow and took down lines with them. On Sunday the situation had eased significantly.

All households have power restored

In the early evening, Netz Oberösterreich reported that all households had power again. The only exception is a transformer station that supplies a concrete mixing plant in the Innviertel. The repairs are not scheduled to take place until Monday morning.

Calm down on Sunday

The weather experts at GeoSphere Austria gave the all-clear on Saturday. “The heavy snowfalls are over, the precipitation in Upper Austria is getting weaker everywhere,” says meteorologist Claudia Riedl to the OÖNachrichten. And so it happened. By Sunday afternoon the situation had calmed down significantly. The snowfall that had been ongoing until then had subsided in many places and the wind, which was sometimes strong, had died down. In many cases there were defects and vehicles that were poorly equipped for the weather got stuck on the way, the ÖAMTC reported on Sunday. Apart from that, there were significantly fewer missions.

The St. Martin city cemetery and Urnenhain Kleinmünchen must remain closed on Sunday until further notice for safety reasons due to the current weather situation and the massive snow pressure on the trees, reports Linz AG.

Be careful, danger of avalanches

But the situation in the mountainous regions remains tense as the danger of avalanches is considerable, according to weather experts. Due to the high level of avalanche danger at level 4 on the five-level danger scale, the avalanche warning service in Tyrol warned winter sports enthusiasts to exercise “great restraint” on Sunday. In Vorarlberg the avalanche danger was significant (level 3), but an appeal was also made to the population there.

Train traffic is picking up speed again

Despite the more relaxed weather conditions in Bavaria, there were still no trains running at Munich Central Station on Sunday. It was not possible to travel from Austria to the Bavarian capital by train. The Ennstal route near Schladming was also closed in sections.

Lows around minus 15 degrees

Only a few flakes are expected to fall in the next few hours. But it will be very cold: the meteorologists expect lows of around minus 15 degrees in some areas in the evening and night hours. There will hardly be any new snow, but thanks to frosty temperatures the country will remain covered in white next week.

It will continue to be cold on Monday and Tuesday. Black ice is to be expected, and there is also an increased risk of avalanches in the ridge areas.

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