Very mild October 2024

Preliminary climate assessment of October 2024 by GeoSphere Austria: Austria's eleventh warmest October in recorded history in the lowlands and eighth in the mountains. Precipitation slightly above average (+10 per cent) and sunshine duration slightly below average (-14 per cent) in the Austria-wide evaluation.

October 2024 started with a few cool days, but was then warmer than an average October throughout Austria for the rest of the month.

"October 2024 was 2.0 degrees above the average for the 1991 to 2020 climate period in Austria's lowlands and 2.2 degrees in the summit regions," says climatologist Alexander Orlik from GeoSphere Austria, "which puts Austria's lowlands in 11th place in the series of the warmest Octobers in the 258-year measurement history and the mountains in 8th place in the 174-year mountain measurement series."

Compared to the 1961-1990 climate period, October 2024 was 2.7 degrees above average in the lowlands and 2.3 degrees above average in the mountains.

October 2024 is therefore the seventeenth consecutive month in Austria's lowlands that is above the already very warm climate average for the period 1991 to 2020. The last relatively cool month was May 2023. In the mountains, too, it was almost consistently too warm in the last seventeen months, with only September and November 2023 being relatively cool.

Due to the mild weather, frost (lows below 0 degrees) was comparatively rare. "In an average October in Austria below 500 metres above sea level, two days with frost are to be expected," says climatologist Alexander Orlik from GeoSphere Austria, "October 2024 did not bring a single day with frost below 500 metres. The last time this happened in an October was 23 years ago, in 2001."

Between 500 and 1000 metres above sea level, it was only very occasionally frosty in October 2024. The long-term average here is four frost days. At an altitude of 1000 to 1500 metres, there was only one frost day this October instead of an average of eight, and at altitudes of 1500 to 2000 metres there were three frost days instead of 11. Even above 2000 metres above sea level, there were around 40 percent fewer frost days than the average.

In the Austria-wide evaluation, the amount of precipitation in October 2024 was 10 per cent above the long-term average and therefore within the statistical fluctuation range.

The regional analysis shows significant differences, as a Mediterranean low brought a lot of precipitation to the south of Austria in the first half of October. In East Tyrol, Carinthia and Western Styria, there was around 25 to 85 per cent more precipitation in October 2024 than the average. In the north of Austria, on the other hand, it was far too dry. Here, the majority of the Innviertel, Mühlviertel and Waldviertel regions in particular received around 25 to 50 per cent less precipitation than in an average October.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)