It reaches 30 degrees in the Fühn valleys – at the beginning of April!
“An extraterrestrial-looking weekend with an air mass not seen here at this time of year for more than 100 years,” Jörg Kachelmann predicts.
Climate change causes mercury levels to rise earlier in the year: Spring play at Golfpark Winterberg ZH, pictured on April 15, 2013.
Photo: Reto Oshgar
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We have so far seen the warmest start to the year since measurements began Wild easter days with hairdryer, The dust and avalanches of the Sahara have survived and we are already preparing for an extraterrestrial-looking weekend with an air mass not seen here at this time of year in over 100 years.
As always, there are still some small uncertainties four or five days before, but we have to assume the following general conditions for Saturday (and perhaps also for Sunday and Monday):
This means that mountain records have been set, not necessarily for the entire month (it can be noticeably warmer at the end of April), but certainly for the first decade of the month. The big question (you guessed it because I'm messing around with the temperature at 1500 C): What does this mean for flat lands?
The sun alone won't break it
In the middle of summer, it is easy to answer the question: the sun shines for a long time, the solstices fry during the day, and we can add 12 to 15 degrees to a temperature of 20 degrees at 1500 m, so we write in July: it will be 30 until next weekend 35 Degree in the lowlands.
But it's early April, temperature fluctuations are still at play and it will take wind to mix the heat all the way from top to bottom, and the sun alone won't be able to do that. Now it looks like there will be a mild fog situation over the coming weekend, which means we'll have to deal with a cooler fog layer in the central plateau, perhaps blocking out the clouds at high altitudes – giving a chance of temperatures around 25 degrees and maybe a little higher, if you… You want to see these values positive at the beginning of April.
In the Föhn valleys the story is different, there is cold air close to the ground that is removed by the wind, we can expect 1 degree per 100 meters and a slight case due to solar radiation, so we formulate our provisional forecast for Saturday like this: at 1500m altitude about 20, in the lowlands about 25 , in the valleys of Vohn locally about 30 degrees.
These April values are worrying
Climate change means something like this is now possible in the first days of April, which is worrying in the middle of summer – if you extrapolate that, it means you could also end up somewhere near 45 degrees in Switzerland in the near future When the air mass and weather conditions match perfectly.
In the past 100 years, the day has been similarly wild, but only because the climate changes later in the month, which means it can get warmer in the lowlands: on 17 April 1934, the temperature was 28.6 degrees in Zurich, in the Binningen BL (which to this day is always sold as “Basel”) 29.0 and in Bern 22.8. Riggie's temperature was 14.3 degrees at the time, so the air mass was a bit cooler than we expect next weekend – 11 days earlier in the month.
There will be an update to the topic tomorrow.
Jörg Kachelmann, meteorologist at kachelmannwetter.com. Over the next few days, he will be writing loosely about weather, weather phenomena, and weather myths.
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