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13. 10. 09. - 15:00

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13. 10. 09. - 15:00

Mountains already covered by snow

By William Green

Austrian mountains have seen up to 45 centimetres of snow as Arctic weather has swept through the country, the Central Agency for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) has said.

It said the weather station at Rudolfshütte in Salzburg, which is at 2,000 metres above sea level, had received the most snow - 45 centimetres - last night (Mon/Tues).

ZAMG said high wind had accompanied the snow, with gusts of up to 150 kilometres an hour reported on the Schneeberg in Lower Austria and gusts of more than 100 kilometres an hour in many areas.

Such high winds, the agency said, were recorded on average only once every 25 years. It warned that Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland would have high winds of up to 80 kilometres an hour on Thursday.

The snow in the mountains is a taste of things to come for some provincial capitals, which are expected to see their earliest snowfalls in history this week.

Josef Haselhofer from ZAMG said yesterday the cold weather would probably result in the first snow cover in provincial capitals before 20 October in history and added Innsbruck, Salzburg and St. Pölten were likely to see snow.

He said as much as 30 to 40 centimetres of snow was likely down to 1,200 metres and snow could fall as low as 400 metres later this week, adding it had already begun to fall in Vorarlberg. He also predicted low temperatures would be minus five degrees at higher elevations and zero degrees in the lowlands by Thursday morning.

Haselhofer warned of possible impassable snow drifts in some places and the danger of avalanches in low-lying areas.

The record for early snow in provincial capitals was set in 2007, when snow remained on the ground in some of them from 20 to 24 October. The average high in October, according to ZAMG, is 15 degrees.

The snow warnings come after weather records tumbled last week, with a number of places seeing records for the highest October temperature in many years, according to ZAMG.

It said records had been set on 7 October in Vienna-Donaufeld, with a high of 28.6 degrees, the highest in 50 years, and in Großenzersdorf, Lower Austria, with a high of 28.5 degrees, the warmest October day there in history.

Austrian Times

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