Consequences for vegetation?

Austria is struggling with a remarkable drought

The severe drought at present is increasing the risk of fire in the local forests.

(Bild: APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)

So far this year, the amount of precipitation for the whole of Austria is 54 percent below average. Klaus Haslinger, climate researcher at Geosphere Austria, is therefore also struck by the ongoing drought. If there is no heavier rainfall in the next three to four weeks, the weather phenomenon could also have an impact on the emerging vegetation.

Unlike other meteorological phenomena, there is no clear definition of drought, according to Haslinger. An agrarian drought - as is currently prevalent - is when the soil no longer contains enough water to supply plants sufficiently. A hydrological drought, on the other hand, only occurs when rivers, lakes and groundwater levels fall below a critical level.

Winter with very little precipitation
For domestic use, however, we speak of a drought when precipitation is significantly below the respective average for several months. This is currently the case in Austria. "It was a winter with very little precipitation and we are also starting the vegetation phase very dry," says Haslinger.

Geosphere Austria's monitoring also shows how severe the drought is. It shows a value of less than 54 percent for Austria as a whole compared to the average value for the climate period from 1991 to 2020. The values are even more extreme at individual measuring stations: in the Rax region, where there was also a forest fire recently, there was around 70 to 85 percent less precipitation from December to now than the average for this period.

At the Reichenau/Rax weather station, only 30 millimetres of precipitation were measured from 1 December 2024 to 10 March. "The average here during this period is 192 millimetres. This results in a deficit of 84 percent," says Geosphere. Other values also underline the situation: St. Pölten: 22 instead of 66 millimetres, Kremsmünster 44 instead of 136 millimetres, Zell am See 45 instead of 138 millimetres and Langen am Arlberg 103 instead of 239 millimetres.

Not every hundred years
Haslinger emphasized, however, that the current situation, while exceptional, "does not only occur every hundred years". March 2022, for example, was 71 percent below average.