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WEATHER

Storm expected to bring snow to Swiss plateau

Following several days of rain in lower altitude areas of Switzerland, a storm is expected to bring more precipitation, high winds and cooler temperatures to the country on Tuesday.

Published: 11 January 2016 22:28 CET
Storm expected to bring snow to Swiss plateau
Flooding in the village of Wolhusen, near Lucerne. Photo: Lucerne cantonal police

Snow is forecast at altitudes above 600 metres, Meteonews said in a news release on Monday.

Winds are expected to grow in strength with gusts from 70 to 90 kilometres an hour in the plateau area (the region between the Jura and the Alps) on Wednesday, the weather service said.

Gusts of between 120 and 140 km/h are predicted for Alpine peaks.

Weather experts anticipate snow to hit the plateau for the first time this season on Wednesday followed by a period of calm until a fresh weather disturbance arrives on Friday night.


Heavy precipitation over the past few days has triggered landslides and flooding in various parts of Switzerland, while boosting the avalanche risks in mountain regions.

The avalanche danger is particularly high in the canton of Valais, where a metre of fresh snow is expected in the Alps this week.

After an absence of snow in December, ski resorts have struggled to get operations up and running with rain hampering conditions in several resorts at the weekend.

The men's alpine skiing World Cup giant slalom event at Swiss venue Adelboden was cancelled on Saturday after rain badly degraded the slopes, organizers announced. 

Rain also played havoc at the weekend in Cuarny, a village in the canton of Vaud near Yverdons-les-Bains.

A water-saturated garden above a water reserve for fire fighting collapsed into it on Sunday, creating a “tsunami”-like wall of water that poured into the underground garage of a neighbouring property, the ATS news agency reported.

Residents were briefly evacuated but no-one was injured by the incident.

Elsewhere in the canton of Vaud, a landslide on Monday morning blocked the road between the villages of Burtigny and Gilly after a stream overflowed its banks.

In the canton of Lucerne, the main road of the village of Wolhusen was flooded early on Monday after 5,000 cubic metres of rock fell from a cliff into the Kleine Emme river, diverting the course of the water.

Around 20 people were evacuated but no-one was hurt, although damage was substantial, Lucerne cantonal police said.

The road linking Wolhusen to Entlebuch, west of the city of Lucerne, was closed because of the high water.

Eighty fire fighters called to the scene erected a 25-metre long dike to redirect water back into the river, police said.

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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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