Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

WEATHER

‘Scandalous’ car park delays rile festivalgoers

Festivalgoers attending Nyon’s Paléo festival have reacted in anger after bad weather created long delays to exit car parks on Wednesday night.

Published: 24 July 2014 12:03 CEST
'Scandalous' car park delays rile festivalgoers
Stromae performed on Wednesday night. Photo: Paleo/Lionel Flusin

Drivers leaving the festival after Wednesday’s headline concert by Belgium’s Stromae vented their frustrations on social media when lengthy queues formed at the site’s various car parks.

“Two hours to exit P3. Scandalous!” wrote one driver on the Facebook page of newspaper 20 Minutes.

Wait times at the site’s P4 car park grew to three hours, provoking one driver to comment “I’ve never seen that in 15 years.”

Another disgruntled driver, Christine Sauterel-Doutaz, wrote on Paléo’s Facebook page “Wednesday evening was brilliant until we tried to leave the car parks!!! 2h!! And an utter mess! Thank you to the volunteer who gave out water.”

Several parking areas were closed after festival organizers implemented a “rain plan” due to heavy rain earlier in the week.

As a result festivalgoers had been told to use public transport where possible rather than arrive by car.

On Wednesday the festival’s website advised drivers to park in Nyon and take advantage of shuttle buses to the site.

Oragnizers also implored attendees to exercise “patience and courtesy”.

Despite the weather, large crowds were wowed by Stromae last night.

The 90-minute set of 29-year-old Paul Van Haver, aka Stromae, was judged a “sensation” by Swiss media.

The disruption is likely to continue as rains descend again and crowds arrive to see British veteran rocker Elton John perform tonight.

Around 230,000 spectators are expected at the festival, which runs until Sunday.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

WEATHER

Why are there so many weather-related disasters in Switzerland this summer?

From mudslides to flooded hiking trails, several Swiss regions have suffered serious weather-related damage during this year’s summer season.

Published: 14 August 2024 13:40 CEST
Why are there so many weather-related disasters in Switzerland this summer?

In the past weeks, frequent spells of extreme weather claimed lives and caused considerable material damage in several regions of the country.

Among them:

In June, parts of Switzerland, including the canton of Graubünden and the resort of Zermatt in Valais, were hit by huge floods, which claimed the lives of three people and left buildings and roads destroyed.

They were triggered by a violent thunderstorm that unleashed the rivers, causing a rock and mud avalanche in the municipality of Misox.

Additionally, landslide of mud and rubble destroyed a part of the north-south axis of the A13 motorway.

Areas of Valais and Ticino were also among those badly damaged by storms, with three people dead and five missing in the latter canton; the upper Val Maggia remained cut off from the rest of the country and without water and electricity for days.

And just this week, two people were injured in a massive storm in Brienz (canton Bern) and 70 others had to be evacuated from their homes, after the Milibach river overflowed after heavy rains, carrying stones, boulders and wood, which caused a water collector above the village to flow uncontrollably.

Buildings, parked vehicles, roads and public transport infrastructure were damaged.

Also, more than 620 trails –1,300 km in total – had to be closed to hikers due to heavy rains and flooding that hit some regions of the country at the end of June. 

READ ALSO: Hikers in Switzerland warned as hundreds of trails close

Why has this been happening?

“The summer of 2024 has been marked by particularly bad weather,” said meteorologist Felix Blumer. “There is one or two damaging thunderstorms every summer, but this year, there have been lot of them.”

There is a scientific explanation for this phenomenon: according to Blumer, most of the summer so far, the weather in Switzerland has been dominated by low pressure areas.

“It is precisely the low pressure situations that are important, with the summer solar radiation, the ground heats up very strongly. The warm, light air can rise, cool down, condense – resulting in showers and thunderstorms.”

In a simple(r) language, low pressure gives way to warm air and rainstorms, which explains the high number of strong and destructive thunderstorms.

Is the weather this summer really more ‘extreme’ than in the past?

According to Thomas Schlegel from Switzerland’s official weather service MeteoSwiss, “due to the extreme events that have occurred so far, 2024 will certainly go down in history as a year with a lot of bad weather and damage.”

He also cited “exceptional” lightning activity during the thunderstorms: over 70,000 lightning strikes were recorded — more than during a typical summer.

In fact, two people who were working in a field in Fribourg during one such lightning episode in July, were struck and injured, along with a police officer and a REGA pilot who came to their rescue. 

What’s ahead, weather-wise?

MeteoSwiss’ eight-day weather forecast predicts more rain and thunderstorms, ranging in severity, in various Swiss regions. 

SHOW COMMENTS