Austria is hottest place in Europe

By Rob Hyde

Austria is now officially the hottest place in Europe, with temperatures on Sunday above other typical hot-spots.

According to the Austrian weather service (ZAMG), a top-temperature of 39.2 degrees was reached last weekend, making the Alpine republic far hotter than Ibiza (32 degrees), Rhodos (33) and Beke (34).

The highest temperature of 39.2 degrees was recorded both in Waidhofen an der Ybbs in Lower Austria and Bad Goisern in Upper Austria.
This was closely followed by temperatures in Villach and Salzburg of 38.7 and 38.6 degrees.

Whilst Vienna city centre experienced a scorching 38.4 degrees, things were not much different at Klagenfurt airport where temperatures ran at 38 degrees.

The ZAMG forecast for today is for north and south Burgenland to become to hottest place in the country, with both experiencing top temperatures of 38 degrees.

Europe’s heat wave in 2003 was officially the continent’s hottest summer since 1540, which claimed over 14,800 heat-related deaths in France.

Here the sun was so fierce that crops were burnt across the country. This happened on such a major scale that the wheat harvest fell by 20 per cent-