Austria Records Driest Spring in 169-Year Measurement History

Regional Disparities and Historic Lows

March was particularly dry, with precipitation 58 percent below average. April was even worse, recording a deficit of 68 percent. May brought some relief with a deficit of 33 percent, but average rainfall amounts were only reached in isolated southern areas.

Regionally, the Innviertel and the adjacent Flachgau were hardest hit, with deficits reaching up to 80 percent. Other severely affected areas included the Mühlviertel, Waldviertel, Upper Styria, the rest of Salzburg, East Tyrol, and Upper Carinthia, where shortfalls reached up to 65 percent.

Weather stations with very long measurement series also set new historic low precipitation records. Lienz, where measurements have been taken since 1854, and Ried im Innkreis, recording since 1872, both registered unprecedented spring dryness.

A Season of Temperature Extremes

Temperatures during spring 2026 averaged 1.2 degrees Celsius above the 1991–2020 climate norm. Compared to the 1961–1990 reference period, the deviation was even larger at 2.7 degrees. This makes it the sixth-warmest spring in a 260-year measurement series.

The season was marked by dramatic temperature swings. A cold air intrusion at the end of March caused a temperature drop of up to 30 degrees in some locations, bringing heavy snowfall to areas like the Achensee and Mariazell. The Eisheiligen around mid-May brought another notable cooling.

Toward the end of May, a heatwave set new temperature records at 20 Geosphere weather stations. In Lienz, the temperature reached 33.3 degrees Celsius on May 26, exceeding the previous record from 2009 by 1.1 degrees. Many stations also reported their warmest May nights on record.

Sunshine Surplus and Climate Context

The stable high-pressure weather patterns that dominated the spring also brought abundant sunshine. Austria recorded 15 percent more sunshine hours than the 1991–2020 average. In Vorarlberg, the Tiroler Außerfern, Salzburg’s Flachgau, Upper Austria, and western Lower Austria, sunshine duration exceeded the long-term mean by more than 30 percent.

Podersdorf am Neusiedler See was the sunniest location in the country between March 1 and May 31, with 755 sunshine hours. The station at Wachtberg near Steyr registered 646 hours, a 29 percent increase over the long-term average.

The preliminary climate assessment was released by GeoSphere Austria on Friday. The data underscores a broader pattern of accelerating climate change, with only two too-cold and two normal seasons recorded since 2020.

Internationally, the spring of 2026 also set numerous temperature records. From the Iberian Peninsula to Great Britain and Central Europe, more than a thousand temperature records were broken. Portugal recorded 40 degrees Celsius for the first time in spring, and London reached 35 degrees.