Work

Brief communication: How extreme was the thunderstorm rain in Vienna on 17 August 2024? A temporal and spatial analysis

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: . On 17 August 2024, a single thunderstorm cell in Vienna/Austria led to a rainfall of 107 mm/2 h at the weather station of "Hohe Warte", which has been monitoring hourly precipitation since 1941 – one of the world's longest-running precipitation time series at this temporal resolution. A comparison with other gauging stations in the area indicates that this amount of rainfall almost doubles the second-largest event. A conservative estimate of the return period of this event is approx. 662 years. Full spatial analysis was conducted on the radar-based INCA data set, showing that the 20-year return value on a grid cell level ranges between 28–69 mm/2 h, further highlighting the rarity of this event.

Source: Natural hazards and earth system sciences

DOI: 10.5194/nhess-25-4807-2025

Authors: Vinzent Klaus, Johannes Laimighofer, Fabian Lehner

Institutions: GeoSphere Austria, BOKU University

Language: English

Topic: Precipitation Measurement and Analysis

Subfield: Atmospheric Science

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,553