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Switzerland breaks records with brief spring in February

Thursday was exceptionally warm in Switzerland with many places across the country seeing temperatures of around 20 degrees, breaking previous records for the month of February.

Published: 24 February 2017 09:08 CET
Switzerland breaks records with brief spring in February
Photo: The Local
The unseasonal weather, due to a mass of dry, hot air moving up from Spain, meant it felt more like the end of April than February, with temperatures on the Swiss lowlands some 12 degrees warmer than usual for this time of year, said MeteoNews.
 
The cities of Nyon, Sion, Aigle and Neuchâtel all broke their previous February records. 
 
In Sion, the mercury rose to 21.2 degrees, smashing its previous record of 19.8 set in 1998. Nyon reached 18.4 degrees and Aigle 19.5.
 
Cities in German-speaking Switzerland were also affected, with Thun, Interlaken and Basel-Binningen all surpassing 20 degrees. 
 
Lucerne wasn’t far behind with 19.9 degrees, Zurich reached 19.5 and Bern set a new city record for February with 18.5 degrees.
 
The temperatures were helped by a strong foehn wind which brought gusts of up to 90km/hr in some places, said MeteoNews.
 
However the brief spring has already disappeared as quickly as it arrived. The arrival of a cold front in the night of Thursday to Friday saw temperatures fall rapidly back to the norm for this time of year. 
 
Predicting the erratic weather earlier this week, MeteoSuisse said in 24 hours the mercury would drop from around 17C to 8C on the lowlands, and from 4C to -8C at 2,000m.
 
Around 20-40cms of snow is forecast above 1,500m in the Bernese alps and prealps for Saturday, with a bit less in the Valais alps.
 

The spring-like weather quickly disappeared on Friday. Image: MeteoSuisse.

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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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