Weather in Switzerland
The sunny parenthesis will close suddenly
An ideal summer time currently reigns thanks to the kiss which maintains a bearable heat. As of Sunday, the arrival of Mediterranean air announces temperatures exceeding 30 degrees and a risk of violent thunderstorms.
During the next few days, we can still enjoy the hot days without restriction. Next week, the weather will be more turbulent.
KEYSTONE
- The kiss currently brings pleasantly high temperatures, without stifling heaviness.
- On Sunday, the wind management is reversed, which leads to the arrival of Mediterranean hot air. Violent thunderstorms with bad weather will take over from Monday.
- The month of June 2025 will probably become the second hottest month since the start of the measures.
There is currently a ideal time in Switzerland: pleasantly hot days (between 25 and 30 degrees), dry air with a slight breeze, and refreshing nights where the thermometer descends to 14 or 16 degrees.
The kiss repels heat
The current week illustrates although the summer anticyclonic periods in our regions bring not systematically heat waves.
The general weather situation, characterized by the arrangement of atmospheric pressure centers, explains these conditions. Since the beginning of the week, high pressure has dominated Western and central Europe, the center of anticyclone located near the British islands.
In high pressure areas, air always turns in the clock of a watch. This movement generated a cold air flow that blows from the northeast over the Alps. This is what we commonly call the kiss.
If in winter, the kiss brings inconvenience like the cold and a thick fog, it plays a very different role in summer.
During the summer months, the kiss brings a very hot air, but also very dry. This is the reason why thunderstorms are difficult to develop when the kiss blows in summer. This dry air in the low layers of the atmosphere deprives them in a way of their food source. The sky thus remains mainly cleared, allowing air to cool at ground level during the night. Consequence: despite summer temperatures, the atmosphere does not seem suffocating and remains pleasant to bear.
According to weather forecasts, the current situation should persist until Saturday included.
Thunderstorms to provide
But during the day of Sunday, the conditions will evolve. “The anticyclone moves east and the kiss stops,” explains Bernd Konantz, meteorologist at Weather. Switzerland will then gradually be in the face of a depression that advances from the Atlantic to Ireland and Scotland.
With the arrival of this depression, the winds at altitude will gradually turn southwest over the Alps. This phenomenon will attract a very hot and humid air mass which, in recent days, has already increased the thermometer up to 40 degrees in Spain and the south of France. This heat now moves to central Europe.
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Thus, it is the end of pleasant summer temperatures. On Sunday, mercury will exceed 30 degrees in Switzerland. Due to the increase in air humidity, the night from Sunday to Monday will no longer be very cool, especially in cities where you can expect a tropical night. We talk about tropical night when temperatures do not descend below 20 degrees.
Following the change of air mass, thunderstorms will also be back. According to Bernd Konantz, these thunderstorms could affect a large part of the country between Saturday and Sunday, but they will remain mainly located in the regions of the Pre -Alps and the Alps.
Violent thunderstorms
The weather next week will be unstable. Temperatures will remain summer, but time will not be constant. We will have a variable weather, alternating between hot or very hot days and stormy periods that will refresh the atmosphere.
The heat wave on Sunday should fade on Monday evening with the arrival of a cold front which will cross France and Germany before weakening while reaching Switzerland. According to current forecasts, this cold front could cause violent thunderstorms accompanied by hail and strong gusts of wind.
Between Wednesday and Thursday, a new disturbance area could cause sometimes violent thunderstorms.
The source of this variability is above the North Atlantic. From this region, a powerful stream of a blows in the direction of Central Europe, thereby firing a permanent battle against the Mediterranean hot air. This configuration is typical of our June.
Meteorological models show that this current of altitude coming from the West pushes depression to central Europe. Sometimes these depressions stand out from the main circulation and move independently independent depressions, called cut offs.
The precise management of these weather disturbances remains difficult to anticipate. However, experience indicates that these high temperatures generally promote the development of thunderstorms that can cause bad weather.
A very hot and rather humid June
According to a recent Meteonews blog, the first fortnight of the month turned out to be significantly warmer than the reference climate standard (1991-2020) and slightly more humid for the whole country, with, however, important regional variations in the precipitation.
While northwestern Switzerland has experienced precipitation far superior to normal, Valais has recorded rainy quantities significantly lower than the average in recent years. At the national level, the temperature exceeded normal about 2.7 degrees.
The month of June this year will certainly not be as hot as that of 2003, which had exceeded the Swiss average of 4.6 degrees. However, with temperatures significantly higher than the average planned for the coming days, this month may well take second place in the classification so far occupied by June 2022 which had exceeded the average of 2.6 degrees.
Translated from German by Olivia Beuhat.
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