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Last Swiss mountain pass road reopens

The last mountain pass highway route in Switzerland was finally cleared of snow on Tuesday as most of the country continued to swelter in a heatwave with record-breaking temperatures.

Published: 18 June 2013 20:44 CEST
Last Swiss mountain pass road reopens
View from the Susten Pass. Photo: Switzerland Tourism

The Susten Pass in the Bernese Oberland was scheduled to reopen to traffic on Wednesday at 10am after being closed for eight months, the national traffic information centre Viasuisse announced.

Heavy snow in the spring delayed the opening of the road through the pass at an elevation of 2,224 metres.

Built during the Second World War, the road connects Innerkirchen in the canton of Bern with Wassen in the canton of Uri offering scenic mountain and valley views.

It mainly serves tourists so is traditionally one of the last passes to be cleared.

The recent warm spell has helped with the snow removal.

MeteoSwiss, the national weather office said Sion experienced the hottest day ever recorded for the month of June, with a maximum of 36.2 degrees.

Temperatures reached 36 degrees in Chur, 35 degrees in Basel and 34 degrees in Zurich, Schaffhausen and Lucerne.

It reached 33 degrees in Bern, Neuchâtel and Geneva.

The forecast calls for continued hot weather on Wednesday before rain and thunderstorms set in on Thursday across most of the country.

The fierce heat led to the evacuation of 40 residents from Saint Niklaus in the canton of Valais on Monday and Tuesday as melting permafrost produced mud flows that threatened chalets in the municipality near Zermatt. 

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WEATHER

IN PICTURES: ‘Exceptional’ Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

An "exceptional" dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent's climate monitor said on Monday, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime.

Published: 8 April 2024 14:15 CEST
IN PICTURES: 'Exceptional' Sahara dust cloud hits Europe

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said the latest plume, the third of its kind in recent weeks, was bringing hazy conditions to southern Europe and would sweep northward as far as Scandinavia.

Mark Parrington, senior scientist at Copernicus, said the latest event was related to a weather pattern that has brought warmer weather to parts of Europe in recent days.

“While it is not unusual for Saharan dust plumes to reach Europe, there has been an increase in the intensity and frequency of such episodes in recent years, which could be potentially attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation patterns,” he said.

This latest episode has caused air quality to deteriorate in several countries, Copernicus said.

The European Union’s safe threshold for concentrations of PM10 — coarser particles like sand and dust that that can irritate the nose and throat — has already been exceeded in some locations.

A picture taken on April 8, 2024 shows a rapeseed field under thick sand dust blown in from the Sahara, giving the sky a yellowish appearance near Daillens, western Switzerland. – An “exceptional” dust cloud from the Sahara is choking parts of Europe, the continent’s climate monitor said, causing poor air quality and coating windows and cars in grime. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

The worst affected was the Iberian Peninsula in Spain but lesser air pollution spikes were also recorded in parts of Switzerland, France and Germany.

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Local authorities in southeastern and southern France announced that the air pollution threshold was breached on Saturday.

They advised residents to avoid intense physical activity, particularly those with heart or respiratory problems.

The dust outbreak was expected to reach Sweden, Finland and northwest Russia before ending on Tuesday with a shift in weather patterns, Copernicus said.

The Sahara emits between 60 and 200 million tonnes of fine dust every year, which can travel thousands of kilometres (miles), carried by winds and certain meteorological conditions.

The Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of northwest Africa saw just 12 days within a 90-day period from December to February where skies were free of Saharan dust, the local weather agency Aemet had reported.

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