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Heavy rain pummels eastern Switzerland

More than 200mm of rain fell in Locarno on Wednesday, bringing summer in the Italian-speaking city to a very wet end.

Published: 1 September 2017 10:49 CEST
Heavy rain pummels eastern Switzerland
Photo: BrianAJackson/Depositphotos
The canton of Ticino was the worst hit as a cold front washed across the country bringing heavy rain and violent thunderstorms in southern and eastern regions in particular. 
 
Locarno in Ticino topped the rain charts with 212mm of precipitation, said MeteoNews in a statement, while the Rhine valley saw around 70-90mm.
 
The snow line has dropped to 1,700-2,000m, it said.
 
The rain brought a risk of localized flooding and landslides to many parts, and is thought to have been the cause of a second major landslide in the Bregaglia valley on Thursday evening, a week after the village of Bondo was severely damaged by a first huge rockfall.
 
The road to the village of La Fouly in the Valais was blocked by a mudslide on Thursday afternoon, said local media, but was eventually cleared the next morning.
 
The heavy rain and lower temperatures make for an abrupt change in Switzerland after one of the hottest summers on record. 
 
In July MeteoSuisse said 2017 was on course to be at least the third hottest since records began in 1864, competing with only 2003 and 2015 for the top spot. 
 
By the halfway point summer 2017 was on average four degrees warmer than the norm. 
 
The last few months have been characterized by spells of extremely hot weather interspersed with violent storms such as the one early July that caused major flooding in Zofingen.
 
On Thursday MeteoNews said in many places August was 1-2 degrees hotter than the norm, with above average sunshine and too little rain.
 
The hot weather has been good news for outdoor pools and lakeside ‘badi’, with pools in Bern and Zurich reporting a bumper summer, said Blick. 
 
While the country is currently languishing under a cold front it may not mean the summery weather is over for good. 
 
Speaking to Blick, Roger Perret of MeteoNews said he was hopeful that there could still be summer temperatures in September.
 

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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