Swiss Alps downpour: the birds were happy
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND – Happy worm-hunting birds were the rare creatures outside Monday morning in Switzerland as rain, rain and more rain fell.
Traffic on a number of highways early Monday was slowed down by the soggy start to the week.
Switzerland was drenched, with the exception of parts of Ticino; the central and eastern parts of the country were given an orange alert Monday morning by the national weather service, MeteoSwiss, for heavy rainfall.
Some areas received up to 60mm of rain between Sunday night and Monday noon, with most areas getting 25-35mm.
The new downpour, the result of a cold front from the north, followed 80-110mm in some regions from Thursday to Sunday, ending a long dry spell in many areas, particularly in the Alps.
Another 10 to 20mm is likely to fall Monday afternoon on northern Alpine slopes, especially along the eastern stretch and northern Graubuenden.
The snowline, which was down to 1,200 metres Saturday, rose to 2,600 metres Monday as temperatures warmed up.
All parts of the country should see rain end by Monday evening.
Swiss law requires drivers to have clean windshields and the snow brushed off the car
Update 10:55 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - There has been so little snow this winter it is easy for drivers to forget to check their routes, but snow has returned, Thursday morning 24 February, with the snow line on the lakefront in the Lake Geneva region.
TSR’s road information (Fre, map) and the federal truck road alerts (Eng, map) provide current state of traffic information. The Lausanne-Pontarlier area has slowdowns due to snow, and traffic is restricted in several mountain areas.
There is icy snow at 700 metres.
Reminder: you are legally required to have snow tires in Switzerland when travelling under snowy conditions and if you’re taking a mountain pass you should have chains in the car.
Public transport special offer will run to 15 February
Saleve rises out of the fog: Lake Geneva in winter often sits in a damp blanket of fog that traps fine particles (photo taken 23 January 2010, ©2011 Obwoodman, http://www.flickr.com/photos/86813892@N00/)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Last week’s too-high level of fine particles in the air around Lake Geneva, higher than allowed by federal legislation, has fallen to within limits, according to canton Vaud.
Geneva and Vaud both issued warnings to residents last week to stay indoors and do fewer sports if they are elderly or susceptible to lung problems. The combination of cold air above and warmer air on the lake combined to trap fine particles in the air, up to about 1,000 metres altitude. The problem is not uncommon in the Lake Geneva region in winter.
Warmer air throughout Switzerland has eased the situation and warm, sunny weather for most of this week should help keep the air clearer.
Vaud offers 3 month half-price CFF card to increase public transport use
Vaud’s Bol d’Air programme will remain in place until 15 February, says the canton: for CHF34 instead of CHF54 the canton’s residents can buy a half-price CFF rail card that is good all trains, boats and postal buses in Switzerland, and it provides reductions on urban transport systems, including the Mobilis regional system. Details and coupon
The programme is designed to encourage people to switch to public transport once an alarm is sounded for unacceptable levels of air pollution.
Geneva Friday offered an explanation, in French, and fine particles levels in neighbouring towns, to put the problem in perspective. The web page is worth bookmarking if you have allergies or lung problems, for future pollution alerts.
Sarah Oberson disappeared in 1985 from Saxon, Valais (photo, Sarah Oberson Foundation)
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s kidnap alert system, adopted in early 2010, is now available via cell phone networks and the government is asking the public to register online to participate, to ensure the widest possible alert network.
The minutes that follow a kidnapping are crucial, they say, and the quicker the alert is out to as many people as possible, the better.
The system works in four languages: English, French, German and Italian, in Switzerland only. It takes just seconds to register.
The system is based on the widespread success of a similar system in France and elsewhere. A young girl in Fresno, California was saved in October 2010 when a man who had just heard an alert saw a car going by that matched a description and he chased the kidnapper until the man stopped and pushed the girl out of the car.
The Sarah Oberson Foundation was set up in memory of a five-year-old Valais girl who disappeared walking from her parents’ to her grandparents’ house in the village of Saxon in 1985. The foundation’s site provides advice on what to do in case of a suspected or known kidnapping, with useful phone numbers.
Le Nouvelliste, Valais newspaper that has been active in the search for Sarah over the years and the campaign to set up a national alert system, proves more information on how the system works.
Meteoalarm: Germany has red danger zones Tuesday while Switzerland blissfully green
Early afternoon 13 July: drought and fire danger warnings for southern Alps in Switzerland (source: Meteoalarm/WMO)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – A beta version of a widget for a tropical storm warning system has just gone live for three locations in Asia and it will soon be available to other countries’ national weather systems, to adopt for their own storm alerts. The widget (ed. note: for Microsoft systems only) is being tested for Hong Kong, Macau and Guam, according to Geneva-based WMO (World Meteorological Organization), which is home to Severe Weather Information Centre (SWIC), of which the new service, SWIdget, is a part. SWIdget will allow local and international users to access nearly real-time data about storms, says the WMO.
The new service is complementary to a European-wide online service that provides an early warning service for severe weather in the region. If you think a storm is headed your way in Europe, you can check Meteoalarm online, the European-wide warning system
The new beta version service “aims to help users access severe weather warnings easily so that they can take suitable precautionary measures well in time,” says the WMO. It was developed by the Hong Kong Observatory on behalf of the WMO.
SWIC is a WMO website that provides official tropical cyclone information sourced from national weather and hydraulic offices in different regions of the world. It also provides official observation data around the world for heavy rains and thunderstorms.
SWIdget can be downloaded from the SWIC website.
Lucie, whose murder near Zurich in 2009 prompted Swiss authorities to set up a kidnap alert system
Lucie’s murder sparked passage of Swiss alert system for abducted children
Fribourg, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The family of Lucie Trezzini, a 16-year-old au pair girl from Fribourg who was murdered 4 March 2009 in Rieden, not far from Zurich, is pressing charges against canton Aargau’s prison service. A parliamentary investigation into the events leading up to the girl’s death last year concluded that Lucie’s murderer was given a conditional release from prison without an adequate plan in place for him. He was a serial offender but had not been considered a high risk when he was released, some months before Lucie’s death.
Winter evening autoroute traffic near Morges (Etoy)
Morges, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The electronic signs that warn drivers of slowdowns and accidents on Lake Geneva autoroutes, as well as the Internet service that provides these alerts, are no longer in service, as of Tuesday 1 December. The system has been dismantled to make way for a new real-time system that is part of the widening to six lanes of the Morges-Ecublens stretch on the A1 autoroute near Lausanne. The old system, set up to help drivers during the construction phase that often saw the road reduced to two lanes, will be dismantled 1-4 December to allow tests to be run on the new system for the next six weeks.
The automatic signaling system to alert drivers they may use the extra lanes will be put into operation in the second half of January 2010.
Val d'anniviers, Valais, Switzerland (look for the cat's shadow)
Saint Prex, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Saturday 1 August is Switzerland’s national holiday, a time when the Swiss like to return to their families’ hometowns, and with fine weather forecast, expect trains, planes and roads to be busy starting Friday, as people take long weekends off work.
