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Saturday saw the first summery day of the year in many places on the northern side of the Alps with temperatures of above 25 degrees Celcius. This is exceptionally early. Some measuring stations recorded the warmest ever April temperatures on Saturday.
The temperatures were influenced by lots of sunshine, warm air from the south and a high pressure area in which the air sinks downwards and warms up further.
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October starts with record high temperatures in Switzerland
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By late afternoon on October 2, no fewer than 20 Swiss weather stations had recorded new record highs since measurements began.
It got warmest in Basel with the help of the southwest wind. There it was a midsummer 28.8°C in the afternoon. It was also very warm in Chur with the help of a foehn – a weather system typical to the Swiss mountainous terrain. There the 28.5°C was even significantly higher than the previous April record of 27.7°C.
It is particularly noteworthy that some monthly records have already been broken at the beginning of April. In previous years, new records have been set in the last third of the month.
If you compare the weekend highs with the previous highest temperatures recorded in the first third of April, you can clearly see how exceptionally warm it was. For example, in Interlaken it was over 4 degrees higher on Saturday than ever before during this period.
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2023 was second hottest year on record, says Swiss weather service
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The Swiss weather service SRF Meteo says 2023 was the second warmest in Switzerland since records began. Last year was even hotter.
Exceptionally warm conditions are also expected on Sunday and Monday. Depending on the duration of sunshine, the temperatures are likely to be in a similar range again, and there could be new records at some stations.
Forecaster expect the “heatwave” to end on Tuesday with the arrival of a cold front that will return temperatures to normal levels for the time of year.
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