October this year is the warmest in recorded history

“According to the preliminary assessment, October 2023 will be 3.0 degrees above average for the climate period 1991 to 2020 in the lowlands of Austria, and 3.4 degrees in the mountains,” Hans Ressl, climatologist at Geosphere Austria, said on Tuesday.

Record summer days
Compared to the climate period from 1961 to 1990, October 2023 was 3.7 degrees above average in the lowlands and 3.6 degrees above average in the mountains. The month, dominated by mild high-pressure and south-westerly weather conditions, also brought a record number of summer days (minimum 25 degrees), the weather stations Bad Radkersburg and Wagna-Leibnitz (both Styria) recorded nine in October 2023.

The previous October record from 1942 was seven days in Windischgarsten in Upper Austria. This year there were ten stations for seven summer days, five of which were in Lower Austria. There were eight summer days at the Bruck/Mur weather station.

Numerous maximum temperatures
At the beginning of the month, many Geosphere Austria weather stations also recorded temperature records for the respective measuring location and on October 3, a new Austrian record for October was reached at 30.3 degrees in Langenlebarn (Lower Austria), which was 30.2 degrees. on October 4, 1966 in Fussach in Vorarlberg this was barely exceeded. The month also brought 15 percent more hours of sunshine than average (climate period 1991 to 2020), making it as sunny as October in the past two years.

Northern side of the Alps too dry
Due to the amount of rain in parts of Austria on October 31, Geosphere has initially created a rough analysis of precipitation, which will be added next week. Until then, it had been considerably too dry in some places on the north side of the Alps, but considerably too wet along and south of the main Alpine ridge.

For example, the amount of precipitation from North Tyrol to Lower Austria was in some places about 50 to 70 percent below average, while in the area from Carinthia to East Tyrol to the Brenner Pass it was 50 to more than 100 percent in many regions. rained more than average. in an average October.

2023 one of the three warmest years
After the warmest September, climatologist Alexander Orlik predicted that 2023 could be one of the three warmest years in Austria’s 256-year measuring history if October, November and December were comparable to the average of the past ten years. In this context, he underlined the importance of global warming in the context of the climate crisis.