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WEATHER

Northern exposure: Swiss winter makes March comeback

It's a case of "now you see me, now you don't" as the Swiss spring takes a break in the north of the country.

Published: 19 March 2018 09:19 CET
Northern exposure: Swiss winter makes March comeback
Photo: George Mills

After a snowy weekend in some places, much of Switzerland is set for a cold and grey start to this week with maximum temperatures in the north of the country only just above freezing.

While Geneva can expect to bask in a decidedly more spring-like maximum temperature of 8C on Monday, in Zurich, Bern and Basel the mercury is set to top out at 3C. Meanwhile, in St Gallen it will be a decidedly cold -1C.

There isn’t much relief in sight either: weather in the north of Switzerland is expected to remain on the chilly side until the weekend. Night time temperatures will be between -3C and -6C up until Friday. On the plus side, skies should brighten from Tuesday onwards.

And while this week’s relatively cold spell has nothing on the arctic front that slammed Switzerland recently, SRF Meteo noted that is unusual to get some many cold days in a row from mid-March on.

Source: Meteosuisse

The northwest of the country has borne the brunt of the recent weather. With a top temperature of -0.9C, Basel on Sunday shivered through its coldest March 18th since 1975. It was also the second coldest March 18th on record.

The city of Basel also saw some five centimetres of new snow while the Basel region and the canton of Solothurn were blanketed with up to ten centimetres of the white stuff.

 

 

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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