No navigation on part of Lake Lugano due to high lake level
Published: Thursday, May 16th 2024, 11:40
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Navigation on southern Lake Lugano has been suspended since Thursday morning due to the rising water level. Since Tuesday evening, around 160 liters per square meter have fallen in southern Ticino, which is almost as much as the average for the whole month of May.
When the lake level is high, the bridge at Melide cannot be passed, explained Simone Bianchi, Commercial Director of the Lake Lugano Navigation Company (SNL), when asked by the Keystone-SDA news agency. For this reason, shipping south of Melide was interrupted on Thursday.
Between Tuesday evening and Thursday morning, between 130 and 160 liters of rain per square meter fell in southern Ticino, as Marco Gaia from the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss said at the request of Keystone-SDA. The average value measured between 1991 and 2020 for Lugano in the month of May is 178 liters of rain per square meter.
The rest of Switzerland was also hit by thunderstorms, some of them heavy, especially in western and north-western Switzerland on Wednesday afternoon and evening, as MeteoSwiss wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Danger of flooding until Whit Monday
It is uncertain whether the ships will be able to sail again in the southern lake basin on Friday, continued Bianchi from the Lake Lugano shipping company. The lake level is still rising.
According to the Gaia forecast, intense thunderstorms could still occur locally on Thursday afternoon, but the rainfall would tend to decrease. According to MeteoSwiss, there is still a "considerable risk of rain" (level 3) for Lugano until Thursday afternoon, but the risk of flooding remains high (level 4) until Whit Monday and applies to Lake Lugano and the River Tresa from Lake Lugano to Lake Maggiore.
©Keystone/SDA
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