Austria: Weather review March 2022 – Very dry and very sunny
Too dry in the last seven months
It is also noteworthy that it has been too dry for more than half a year. “In the Austria-wide evaluation, the period from September 2021 to March 2022 brought 30 percent less precipitation than the long-term average. That was last 46 years ago, from September 1975 to March 1976,” says ZAMG climatologist Orlik.
Extremely many hours of sunshine
The persistent high pressure areas also made for a very sunny March. In the Austrian lowlands, with 50 percent more hours of sunshine than the long-term average, it was 3rd in the series of the sunniest March months, behind March in the years 1953 and 1948. In the mountains, it was the sunniest March since measurements began, with an increase of 55 percent hours of sunshine.
Regional Sunshine Records
New records for sunshine duration are emerging for some ZAMG weather stations, including locations with very long series of sunshine measurements.
On the Feuerkogel in Upper Austria, the March record from 1943 (229 hours of sunshine) has already been surpassed. In the evaluation including March 28, 2022, the Feuerkogel has 235 hours of sunshine in March 2022. The series of sunshine measurements on the Feuerkogel dates back to 1931.
Shortly before the end of the month, Kremsmünster (Upper Austria, measurements since 1884), Sonnblick (S, measurements since 1887) and Patscherkofel (T, measurements since 1935) are only a few hours below the respective records and are likely to exceed them.
Second sunniest winter half year in measurement history
The entire winter half-year from October 2021 to March 2022 was also very sunny and brought 21 percent more hours of sunshine than the long-term average. Together with 1942/43, it was the second sunniest winter half-year since measurements began. Only the winter months of 1989/90 were sunnier (+29 percent).
In a longer comparison relatively mild
Compared to the climate period from 1961 to 1990, which was not yet so strongly influenced by global warming, March 2022 was 0.8 degrees above the average in the lowlands (78th place in the series of the warmest March months since measurements began in 1768) and on the mountains by 2.0 degrees (32nd place in the series of the warmest months of March since measurements began in 1851).
In comparison with the last 30 years (climate period 1991 to 2020), March 2022 was 0.5 degrees too cool in the lowlands and 0.7 degrees too mild in the mountains.
Development of vegetation somewhat delayed in March
The temperature conditions in March delayed the development of the vegetation a little. In February, the development was still around two weeks above the long-term average, now at the end of March around a week, for example with the beginning of flowering of forsythia, wood anemone and apricot. The more hesitant the phenological development, the lower the probability of frost damage in April.
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