Increasing hourly heavy rainfall in Austria reflected in flood changes

Climate change is expected to increase heavy rainfall with concomitant increases in flooding1. Causes of increased heavy rainfall include the higher water-holding capacity of a warmer atmosphere and changes in atmospheric circulation patterns2, which may translate into future heavy rainfall increases in most of Europe3. However, gathering evidence on the time evolution of past changes has been hampered by data limitations and measurement uncertainties, in particular for short rainfall durations, such as 1 h. Here we show an 8% increase in daily and 15% increase in hourly heavy rainfall over the last four decades by analysing a new dataset comprising 883 stations in Austria from 1900 to 2023. These increases…