Summer in April: parts of Switzerland see record temperatures

In French, the expression “En avril, ne te découvre pas d'un fil” (In April, don’t remove a thread of your clothing), refers to the likelihood of cold weather making a return at any time. In German, the saying goes “April, April, der macht was er will”, which means something along the lines of “anything can happen weather-wise in April.”

But anyone who has spent any time in Switzerland over the last week or so could be forgiven for thinking summer had already arrived.

As high pressure dominated western Europe with London seeing its warmest April day in nearly 70 years, Switzerland saw record temperatures in some places.

Sion in the canton of Valais experienced a record April temperature of 28.9C on Friday. La Brévine – notorious for being the Siberia of Switzerland – also saw it’s April record broken, with a maximum temperature of 22.6C.

Other April records were registered in Fahy in the canton of Jura (25.3C) and Engelberg in Obwalden (23.1C).

Night-time temperature records were also broken in some places on Friday with the minimum temperature at the summit of the 2,693-metre high Weissfluhjoch in the canton of Graubünden a very warm 4.8C, or 1.3C warmer than the previous record.

But the stunning weather did not come without problems. Wildfires broke out in the cantons of Bern and St Gallen, while meteorologists warned of increased avalanche danger: two Austrians were injured on Sunday in Val Bregaglia in Graubünden after being carried 200 metres by an avalanche. They were taken by helicopter to the cantonal capital of Chur.

 

 

Meanwhile, the first complaints of summer littering of the year appeared on social media after people in Switzerland flocked to parks, lakes and rivers to enjoy the mini-summer.

Temperatures this week will be cooler but you probably won’t need to break out those winter jackets out again.