Mild March continues the trend of recent months
Published: Thursday, Mar 28th 2024, 13:40
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March 2024 was around two degrees Celsius too mild and too wet across the whole of Switzerland. According to the private weather service Meteonews on Thursday, this means that March was one of the most mild months on record.
The last month that was too cool compared to the long-term average from 1991 to 2020 was April 2023, the report continued. According to Meteonews, the temperature deviation from the long-term average in the current month was greater in the north of Switzerland than in the south. The excess was greatest in eastern Switzerland, with a deviation of over 2.5 degrees in some places.
Due to the high temperatures, there were only a few frosty days in March, especially in the lowlands and deep Alpine valleys. In the cantons of Basel, Neuchâtel, Lausanne and Lugano, the last frost day even dated back to January.
The above-average temperatures also had an impact on the pollen season and vegetation development. According to the private weather service, the latter is on course for a record: the first apple trees are already expected to start blossoming, more than three weeks earlier than normal.
Too wet and too little sun in the south
March was also significantly too wet, Meteonews reported. Overall in Switzerland, there was a surplus of around 60 percent due to the high rainfall in the south. However, the rain was distributed very unevenly: too much rain fell in southern, central and eastern Switzerland, but far too little in the west. In Geneva, only around half of the normal March precipitation fell.
However, the excess rainfall in southern Switzerland is expected to be even greater than in the rest of Switzerland: according to Meteonews, even more precipitation is expected there over the Easter period.
At the same time, the sun shone less frequently than normal this month. The deficit amounted to more than 20 percent across the whole of Switzerland. The smallest deviation was in eastern Switzerland, while the largest was in the central Alps, with over 40% in some places.
©Keystone/SDA
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