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WEATHER

Skier dies in French Alps avalanche

A 32-year-old man died of a heart attack after being buried by an avalanche in the French Alps.

Published: 21 January 2013 12:05 CET
Skier dies in French Alps avalanche
Mountains surrounding the village of Valloire in the department of Savoie (Savoy), where a 32-year old man died in an avalanche on Sunday. Photo: Anthospace/Wikimedia Commons

The man, reportedly from northern France, had been skiing off-piste on Sunday at Valloire in the department of Savoie (Savoy) when an avalanche engulfed him, France's RTL radio reported.

Emergency services managed to locate the man, but the back-country skier had suffered a suspected cardiac arrest and they were unable to resuscitate him. 

The national meteorological service, Meteo France had announced a 3/5 avalanche risk on Sunday for Savoie, which is close to the French-Italian border.

Meanwhile, three off-piste skiers survived a separate avalanche in the Isère department the same day.  The group, all aged in their thirties, were carried off on a sheet of snow measuring 100m long and 10m wide, which had detached itself from the slope at Auris-en-Oisans, 65km from the city of Grenoble.

Other skiers and emergency services found the three submerged in snow. One of the party was found to be suffering from hypothermia and trauma to the legs after reportedly remaining buried for ten minutes.

These incidents came after Meteo France last week placed parts of the Pyrenees region on 'red alert' for avalanches, for the first time ever.

Widespread snow and severe weather conditions caused traffic bedlam throughout France over the weekend, with some airports, including Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris, forced to cancel numerous flights.

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WEATHER

Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Summer is finally here! Or least it is if you live in southern Norway, where a warm front coming up from Europe will bring t-shirt temperatures of 20C by Thursday, according to forecasts.

Published: 30 April 2024 08:42 CEST
Norway to get a taste of summer with 20C days this week

Warm air from southern Europe will combine with a high pressure zone which will bring clear skies and sunshine, with summery weather coming towards the end of the week, Norway’s national weather forecaster Yr has reported. 

“Thursday and Friday especially will be nice,” Ingrid Villa, a meteorologist at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, told the public broadcaster NRK. “Then we will probably get temperatures of over 20 degrees Celsius in some places.” 

Patches of 20C warmth are expected both in western Norway around Bergen and in Western Norway around Oslo, with the area around Tromsø expected to have slightly cooler weather, although Villa said that “it will absolutely be something like summer there too”. 

The warm sunny weather is, however, expected to pass northern Norway by, with grey overcast skies expected for much of this week. 

But if you think summer has come to Norway to stay, you risk disappointment as much cooler temperatures are expected next week.  

“There’s nothing unusual in getting an early taste of summer in April and the start of May, and then we can quickly go back to cooler more spring-like weather,” Villa said. 

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