As early as Tuesday, the temperatures will reach 27 to 35 degrees, in Vorarlberg and Tyrol maybe even 36 degrees. On Wednesday the heat wave in Austria reached its first peak, from Upper Austria to northern Burgenland up to 38 degrees are possible. In the west of the country, on the other hand, it will not be quite as hot and there will be thunderstorms in places in the followingnoon.
The further development from Thursday is still uncertain in detail. The heat wave will probably continue, most computer models also calculate highs of over 30 degrees and occasionally up to 38 degrees for the second half of the week, but not all. It is unclear whether the temperatures will reach new highs, but it cannot be ruled out. It is currently completely open when it will cool down significantly and sustainably.
Danger of forest fires increases
The coming heat will also intensify the drought in some regions of the country. Thanks to the wet June, the situation is not yet dramatic, but the risk of forest fires will increase in the coming days, said Mortimer Müller from the Institute for Silviculture at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) on Monday.
In relative terms, the risk of fire is highest in the lowlands of eastern Austria, but since there are only a few areas of forest there, this means a high risk of fire in a field. “The eastern edge of the Alps in Lower Austria with its black pine population is currently most at risk from forest fires,” the BOKU expert told APA. Lake Neusiedl reached its lowest water level since records began in 1965 on Monday.
Ministry of Health urges caution
In the years 2017 to 2019, the number of additional deaths due to heat was between 198 and 550 people, according to model calculations by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES). No additional deaths were recorded in 2016 and 2020.
The Ministry of Health therefore appealed in a broadcast to take the impending heat wave seriously, to stay in cool rooms, to avoid physical exertion and to drink enough: “Pay special attention to small children, the elderly and chronically ill people – both in the family, among friends and in the neighborhood. Offer support as far as you can,” said Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens).
Talk on the phone
The Ministry of Health’s heat line is available 24/7 on 050 555 555 for questions. In acute cases, the health hotline 1450 advises, in emergencies the rescue service is to be informed.
According to the AGES experts, it is particularly important to only spend a short amount of time outdoors on hot days and to drink enough. Extensive ventilation in the morning, in the evening and at night and darkening the rooms during the day create temperatures that are as bearable as possible.
Urban areas more affected
A common definition of a heat wave is when temperatures rise above 30 degrees for at least three consecutive days. The measures taken according to the heat protection plan that has been in place since 2017 vary from state to state.
Extremwetter
Although individual extreme events cannot be directly traced back to a specific cause, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change it is clear that extreme weather events such as floods, storms and heat are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of the climate crisis. This means: Precipitation and storms are getting heavier, heat waves are getting hotter and droughts are getting drier.
This has to do with the geographic and climatic characteristics of the different areas. “During heat waves, urban areas are usually much more affected than rural regions, mainly because the temperatures at night in the cities drop less than in the countryside,” the APA from the Ministry of Health said.
Persistently high temperatures are also reflected in the number of rescue operations. “Heat puts a heavy strain on the human organism. When heat waves last for several days and bring tropical nights, the body is particularly stressed. Babies, small children and the elderly are particularly affected by the heat,” said the spokeswoman for the Viennese professional rescue service, Corina Had.
The heat deployment record at the Viennese professional rescue service was only recently set, in June 2021. At that time, the teams had to be deployed 1,191 times within 24 hours, often due to heat-related emergencies. Normally there are an average of 800 to 900 missions in the same period, it was said at the time. This year there have always been outliers from days with more than 1,000 missions, but not always due to the heat and fluctuating.
The risk of accidents also increases
There are similar observations across the federal states at the Red Cross – especially in the state capitals, as the press office said. One is not specifically called to “heat operations”, since people usually dial the emergency call due to internal problems and complain, for example, regarding dizziness, blood pressure or circulatory problems – but these are partly due to the high temperatures, it said.
“When the weather is nice, people also do more outdoors, and therefore both leisure-time accidents such as sports accidents or swimming accidents and accidents with two-wheelers increase at this time of the year,” according to the Red Cross.