Advertisement ::

Enlarge Cartoon

Click on images to view larger: split-second series showing gusting winds in Saint Prex, canton Vaud, Thursday evening, in less than one minute

Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – After central Switzerland, the weather demons turned on western Switzerland’s Jura mountain range and La Côte, with windy storms late Monday afternoon 12 July. Winds gusted to well over 100 kph in several areas, according to MeteoSwiss, the national weather service.

Vaud police say they received 122 emergency calls between 17:00 and 19:00. Several people in pedalos near Ouchy/Lausanne and amateur sailors were rescued by lake emergency teams and staff from the Compagnie générale de navigation (CGN) when winds on the lake suddenly whipped up to 90 kph. Shortly after, emergency teams rescued others on Lake Neuchatel. Several pleasure craft on Lake Geneva were tossed from their moorings and police evacuated the VD 8 campground at Cheseaux-Noréaz after trees fell on some of the caravans and some 100 campers’ tents were threatened by other trees.

Campers at the Morges TCS campground on the shore of Lake Geneva held onto their wildly flapping tents. British campers Pat Stevens and her husband Bob said they repegged their tent when they saw red dust from the nearby tennis courts rising in one-storey high clouds.

The CFF trains were badly disrupted by a tree blowing over on the rail line at Rolle: between Gland and Allaman, on the heavily travelled Lausanne-Geneva tracks, rail service was halted from 17:55 to 18:55. Intercity and Inter-regio trains from Lucerne remained out of service for longer, with traffic limited to one track while the tree was removed and repairs were made.

Hot days with evening storms are expected to continue for the next week, a boon for swimming pools in the region, which suffered from under-attendance during the first cold month of the season, but which are now packing the crowds like sardines during the day.

The storms also swept other parts of Switzerland. News service ats reports that 24 people were rescued by boat and helicopter from the banks of the Kloentalersee when their cars were trapped between two mud and rock slides during a violent storm that began abruptly and caught them by surprise. Two passes, the Albula and Susten, were closed until Tuesday to clear up rock slides set off by heavy mountain storms.

Links to other sites: 20 Minutes, GenevaLunch weather forecasts from the national weather service