This extremely warm summer set new temperature records in Austria several times. First, the absolute June temperature record was set to 38.6 deg C on 18 June. On 3 August a new record of 39.9 deg C was set in Dellach im Drautal before it was clearly exceeded at several stations (Bad Deutsch-Altenburg 40.5 C, Neusiedl am See 40.3 C, Güssing 40.0 C) on 8 August 2013. New temperature records were also set in almost all Austrian federal states.

Some media reported a value of 40.6 deg C in Neusiedl am See, which was premature, however, since this measurement was found to be spurious. It is interesting to ask why 40 deg C were reached at these particular stations. They are all in the extreme eastern lowlands of Austria, but also microclimatic aspects may have played a role, such as placement on a slope, nearby buildings or nearby bare soil. Anyway one should not interpret too much into a few tenths of a degree. If the Fahrenheit scale, which is still standard in the US,  were used in Austria, 100 deg F would have been "celebrated" quite some years ago and the 104.9 deg F on 8 August would not have got that much attention. 

Nonetheless these new records can be seen as a manifestation of climate change, since in the past two decades, only warm records were exceeded wheras cold records typically are much older, going back to the 1920s or even further. Assuming that projections with climate models are realistic, one has to expect an increase of mean temperatures in the Alpine region by at least 2 deg C until 2100. The temperature records will very likely rise at a similar rate.

Rising temperatures increase the need for precautions against heat, as they are taken in hot regions of the Earth. There are many simple passive measures for buildings such as roof overhangs, outside sunblinds, heat insulation and controlled ventilation. Active air conditioning systems should be only installed in combination with renewable energy sources such as solar panels. Otherwise they would increase the exhaust of greenhouse gases even further. 

Considering how effective these measures can be, scary stories of sweltering people, as sometimes distributed by the media,  are not in place. Statistics show that the hottest cities on the planet have only few heat related deaths.