Appenzell village is named ‘lightning capital’ of Switzerland
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Appenzell village is named ‘lightning capital’ of Switzerland
Gonten in canton Appenzell Inner Rhodes recorded the highest number of lightning strikes per square kilometre in Switzerland last year. Two other municipalities in the eastern canton also registered a high number of strikes.
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Appenzell Inner Rhodes is the Swiss region with the highest concentration of lightning strikes, said the Lightning Information Service (Blids) and Siemens Switzerland on Sunday. The eastern canton recorded two lightning strikes per square kilometre in 2024.
In Gonten, 2.75 lightning strikes per square kilometre were recorded last year. Schwende-Rüte was second with 2.13 strikes per km2 and Schlatt-Haslen third with 1.84.
French-speaking Switzerland relatively unaffected
The area with the lowest number of strikes in Switzerland was the municipality of Conthey in canton Valais, with 0.16 per km2. There were also low numbers in Boudry, canton Neuchâtel, (0.18) and Entremont, canton Valais, (0.20).
Most overland lightning strikes – i.e. cloud-to-earth lightning strikes – were measured in canton Bern, where almost 5,000 strikes, or 12% of the total, were recorded. In absolute figures by district, Surselva, canton Graubünden, was the worst affected, with almost 1,000 strikes on land.
In total, 29,000 lightning strikes were recorded in 2024 throughout Switzerland, 12% fewer than in 2023, according to a press release. The busiest month was June, with 9,500, and the busiest day was July 31 (3,200).
The assessments by the Austrian Lightning Detection and Information System (Aldis) and Blid are based on records from around 170 measuring stations in Europe.
Translated from French by DeepL/sb
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