Austria “sizzled”

The Devastating Impact of the Summer of 2026, with Temperatures Reaching 41.2 Degrees

Austria experienced a summer of extremes: record-breaking heat, tropical nights, and severe drought characterized the past few months.(Bild: Krone-Collage/APA/BARBARA GINDL, Facebook/We love Ötztal, APA/HELMUT FOHRINGER)

Austria is groaning under the heat: The summer of 2026 will go down in history as a truly record-breaking summer. 41.2 degrees, endless days of heat, tropical nights, and dramatic drought—it’s never been this extreme in this country before.

This summer was something else—and how! Temperatures repeatedly climbed to dizzying heights, and the 40-degree mark was broken in all three summer months. Rain was also scarce in many places. The bottom line is a summer that shatters every record. As meteorologist Roland Reiter explained on Sunday in his summer summary, the Austria-wide average temperature was 2.6 degrees warmer than the climate average. This makes the summer of 2026 the hottest since records began.

Absolute peak on August 5
The Rhine Valley was hit particularly hard: In Feldkirch, the summer was an incredible 3.7 degrees warmer than average, and in Bregenz, it was 3.3 degrees warmer. The picture becomes even more striking when looking at individual weather stations: Of the 246 stations analyzed, 185 reported the warmest summer on record. Another 55 recorded the second-warmest.

And then came the absolute peak. On August 5, the sun beat down from the sky with particular intensity: An incredible 41.2 degrees was recorded in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg—a new Austrian heat record!

(Bild: UBIMET)

It wasn’t just the peak temperatures that were extreme. Above all, the sheer duration of the heat made this summer exceptional. In Vienna at the Hohe Warte and in Klagenfurt, 45 heat days with temperatures of at least 30 degrees were recorded. Graz, Innsbruck, St. Pölten, and Eisenstadt each had 43.

Particularly curious: In Bregenz, which is normally much cooler, 43 hot days were also recorded. By comparison, the long-term average there is just eight.

Ferlach in Carinthia took the cake: so far this year, it has had an incredible 59 days of heat, 53 of them in the summer alone. The previous Austrian record stood at 57 days—set as recently as 2024 in Bad Deutsch-Altenburg.

The heat persisted even at night
Anyone who had hoped to at least catch their breath at night was also disappointed. Especially in the cities, the heat lingered like in an oven. In downtown Vienna, 44 tropical nights were recorded—the second-highest figure in recorded history. 

The night of August 5 was particularly extreme: In Hornstein, the temperature didn’t even drop below 28.5 degrees. That was the highest nighttime low ever recorded at an Austrian weather station.

One-third Less Rain
The record-breaking heat was accompanied by a dramatic phenomenon: drought. Across Austria, summer rainfall was about 31 percent below average. The situation was particularly severe in parts of Upper and Lower Austria, in Burgenland, and regionally in Vorarlberg as well. In Weyer, Upper Austria, rainfall was even 59 percent below the usual amount.

The extreme heat took its toll: After a summer with about one-third less rain, many fields in Austria are completely parched.(Bild: APA/ROLAND SCHLAGER)

This placed an enormous strain on the soil, agriculture, and nature. In many places, the soil was already dry before the summer even began. Weeks without rainfall and the extreme heat further exacerbated the water shortage. And here, too, records were shattered: At 49 weather stations, this summer was the driest since records began.

Drought and Severe Weather—No Contradiction
As paradoxical as it sounds: Despite the severe drought, violent storms occurred repeatedly in some regions. Especially in the central mountainous regions and in the southwest, thunderstorms caused heavy rain, flooding, mudslides, and localized flash floods.

At the Frequency festival in St. Pölten, severe thunderstorms rolled in this year—the evening program even had to be interrupted due to the storms.(Bild: APA/FLORIAN WIESER)

(Bild: APA/FLORIAN WIESER)

This is not a contradiction. On the contrary: After weeks of drought, the soil often cannot absorb massive amounts of rain quickly enough. If an extreme amount of water then falls within a few hours, it runs off the surface—while the deeper soil continues to suffer from the water deficit that has persisted for months.

41.2 degrees, 59 days of heat, tropical nights, and nearly a third less rain: The summer of 2026 wasn’t just hot. It was a summer of extremes...