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WEATHER

Switzerland braces for coldest temperatures in six years

If you think it’s been bitterly cold this week, well, you haven’t seen anything yet: next week temperatures are expected to plunge across the country in a rare cold snap set to be the chilliest since February 2012.

Published: 23 February 2018 09:21 CET
Switzerland braces for coldest temperatures in six years
Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Temperatures will remain below -5 degrees during the day and below -10 at night, MeteoNews said in a press release. At above 1,500m altitude that will drop to -15 degrees.
 
The cold spell will start on Sunday when arctic air will start to reach Switzerland from Russia. 
 
That will be compounded by a strong bise wind (30-50km/hr on average), which could cause temperatures to feel more like -20 degrees with windchill, even in low-lying areas, said MeteoSuisse.
 
The bise could also turn spray on the lakeshores to ice, potentially causing the sort of dramatic pictures last seen in 2012, when a similarly cold period with a bise wind created ice sculptures on the shores of Lake Geneva. 
 
In 2012 a bise wind and frigid temperatures caused scenes like these. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
 
However next week’s chill is unlikely to rival 2012’s in duration. Back then the intense cold lasted for two weeks and included three distinct periods of bise; next week’s cold snap is expected to last for five days with only one episode of bise.
 
Though the country is already rather chilly, with temperatures hovering around zero degrees over the past couple of days and a bise wind, the current weather is simply standard for winter, unlike next week’s exceptional cold, said meteorologists. 
 
The news comes after January was announced as the warmest on record in some low-lying parts of the country. 
 
The higher temperatures were a consequence of frequent storms coming from the west and south-west which prevented cold air from stagnating on the Swiss plains, which is what normally happens in winter. 
 
However it was a different story at altitude, where temperatures were about normal for the month of January and copious snow fell across the Swiss Alps, causing some villages to be cut off.
 
Source: MeteoSuisse
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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. 

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