In the mountains it was the ninth warmest March since measurements began. “After September and October 2023, new record values were reached for two months in a row,” said climatologist Alexander Orlik from Geosphere Austria. This is significant because there have never been two warmest months in a row since the series of measurements began in 1767, “now this has happened twice within a short period of time with September-October and February-March.”
March 2024 was 3.4 degrees above the average for the climate period 1991 to 2020 in the lowlands of Austria and 2.4 degrees in the mountains. This results in first place in the Austrian lowlands in the series of warmest March months in the 258-year history of measurements and ninth place in the mountains in the 174-year series of mountain measurements.
Lowlands 4.7 degrees above mean
Compared to the climate period 1961 to 1990, which was not yet as severely affected by global warming, March 2024 was 4.7 degrees above average in the lowlands and 3.7 degrees above average in the mountains, Geosphere Austria reported. On a large number of days it was unusually warm and the average daily temperatures were often between three and six degrees above average. The highest deviations from the climatic average were observed from Flachgau, through Upper Austria and Lower Austria to northern Burgenland and in parts of the Tyrolean lowlands; the deviation here was between 3.5 and 4.9 degrees.
At the end of the month the 25 degree mark was reached (Oberndorf an der Melk in Lower Austria and Schärding in Upper Austria). From a statistical perspective, such summer days (at least 25 degrees) occur in March in Austria about every five years. According to the climatological average, the first day of summer in Austria does not occur until April 18th. On March 30th, a daily minimum of plus 16.5 degrees was reached in Wiener Neustadt, the severe weather center reported via X – this is a new Austria-wide March record for the mildest night.
The sun, however, was 14 percent less than the long-term average, while the amount of precipitation was 1 percent above average and therefore almost exactly in the range of the long-term average. Since the March months of the past few years were consistently too dry, it was enough for the wettest month since 2009 (at that time 74 percent above the average).
Below 1000 meters little to no snow
Above 1500 meters above sea level there were normal to above average snow depths. In Vorarlberg and Tyrol, the maximum snow depths were ten to 20 percent above the climate average. In Salzburg, Carinthia, Upper Austria and Styria, the snow depths corresponded to an average March. Similar to previous years, this year there was little to no snow at low altitudes, below 1000 meters above sea level.
Nature developed very quickly in the warm weather of the past few weeks: the apricot blossom was three weeks earlier than the average for the climatic period 1991 to 2020 and four weeks earlier than in the climatic period 1961 to 1990. It was the earliest date for the apricot blossom in the since Observation series existing in 1946. However, the early development of the plants makes them more sensitive to cold air incursions with frost, which can still occur every few years until around the beginning of May.
