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03. 08. 09. - 12:00

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03. 08. 09. - 12:00

Salzburg hit by more bad weather

By David Rogers

Salzburg’s northern Flachgau was yesterday (Sun) evening hit by more heavy thunderstorms less than two weeks after massive hail storms had left a trail of destruction in the area.

A provincial fire-department spokesman said today: "Work will have to start from the beginning again."

Just ten days ago authorities had taken emergency measures to put temporary roofs on buildings damaged by the hail storms.

Thirteen fire companies were called out to cope with damage caused by yesterday evening’s storm in the northern Flachgau.

And large areas of Lower Austria were also hit with provincial authorities saying today 1,500 firemen had been called out to pump water out of basements and put out fires in Amstetten, Baden, Bruck/Leitha, Hollabrunn, Horn, Korneuburg, Melk, Mistelbach, Mödling, Scheibbs, Tulln, Waidhofen/Thaya, Wien-Umgebung and Zwettl districts.

Meanwhile lightning caused a forest fire near Neupölla in Zwettl district, and firemen had to put out fires on the roofs of buildings in Etlas and Reitern and a barn fire in Schöngrabern in Hollabrunn district.

Weather forecasters have said more severe thunderstorms are possible in eastern Austria today and tomorrow before the situation improves on Wednesday. Hot weather will return on Thursday and Friday this week.

The first six months of the year were the second wettest in 190 years in northern and eastern Austria, the Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) in Vienna reported last week.

ZAMG climatologist Alexander Orlik said rainfall in northern and eastern Austria had been 147 per cent of the average for the period during the past 190 years – just behind the first six months of 1965 when precipitation was 153 per cent of normal.

Much of the rain in the first six months of the year came amid severe storms that caused widespread flooding and extensive property damage.

July saw more storms and on 23 July Vienna was hit by heavy rain, winds of more than 100 kilometres an hour and hail in some areas that left roofs damaged, trees blown down and public-transport power lines and electricity supplies affected.

Upper and Lower Austria and Salzburg were also pounded by storms. Hail around Braunau in Upper Austria damaged roofs and broke windows in an area of 70 square kilometres and police had to close the western autobahn (A1) in Wels-Land district for a time because of flooding.

Austrian Times

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