The temperatures were upside down for once with a rather cool south side of the Alps and a very mild eastern Switzerland: In Lugano on Sunday at around 2 p.m., 7.3 degrees were measured according to Meteonews, in St. Gallen, however, 15.8 degrees and in Boltigen BE in Simmental 16, 4 degrees. The usual front runners north of the Alps such as Basel or Geneva stayed comparatively cool with 7.6 and 6.7 degrees respectively.
The people were on the move – always towards the sun. But this was no longer as unrestricted as it was on Saturday, the first day of the new year. In many places the clouds only tore open from time to time. The trains were not fuller than usual, as an SBB spokesman for the Keystone-SDA news agency said on request. The day trippers were mainly out on Saturday.
Miles of traffic jams
But traffic jams and waiting times flourished for those who had opted for the car. The TCS reported nine kilometers of traffic jam on the A2 motorway on the south side of the Gotthard between Faido and Airolo on Sunday after 4 p.m. – that meant a waiting time of up to one and a half hours. Late on Sunday evening, the traffic jam at Airolo had shrunk to a kilometer.
As far as temperatures are concerned, the turn of the year 2021/22 was tough: on Saturday, New Year’s, there were new records: According to SRF Meteo, 19.2 degrees were measured in Poschiavo GR.
That was the second highest value ever measured in Switzerland on New Years Day. Only in 1917 were 20.6 degrees already registered in Lugano. At the same time, it was a new January high temperature in Poschiavo at 1078 meters above sea level.
Several January records
Six other measuring stations reported local January records on New Year’s Day: on the Cimetta above Locarno in Ticino it was 16.6 degrees (old record: 13.9 degrees), in La Frétaz in the Vaudois Jura 14.8 degrees, on the Chasseral in the Bernese Jura 13.5 degrees (11.8 degrees), in Evolène VS 12.8 degrees (12.6 degrees), on the Moléson in the canton of Friborg 12.3 degrees (11.4 degrees) and on the Gütsch in Graubünden 8, 6 degrees Celsius.
And this after New Year’s Eve, the last day in 2021, had been very warm and brought, for example, 17.2 degrees to Adelboden in the Bernese Oberland at 1350 meters.
On New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Eve and Berchtold’s Day, temperatures were more widespread than ever before on these days. According to SRF Meteo, on Friday and Saturday there were still over 30 stations in the Swiss measurement network with new highs for the day in question, on Berchtold’s day even over 40 were counted. (zis / SDA)