Cool April
The month of April is slowly coming to an end. But it will continue to have changeable! weather right up to the end: from sunny to heavily overcast! from dry to heavy rainfall including snow in the mountains or thunderstorms, from light winds to gusty.
In terms of temperature, April has shown! us the cold shoulder so far. Even if it should catch up! a bit towards! the end of the month, it is still cool overall (compar to the long-term average from 1991 to 2020). Compar to the standard period from 1961 to 1991, however, this April could be describ as completely normal.
You will find a detail review of April in the climate blog tomorrow
Deviation of the daily mean temperature at SwissMetNet weather stations in the various regions of Switzerland in the current April. (more than 1 °C negative deviation).
Deviation of the daily mean temperature at SwissMetNet weather stations in the various regions of Switzerland in the current April. Days that are too warm (more than 1 °C positive deviation) are color r, days that are too cold (more than 1 °C negative deviation) are color blue. (MeteoSwiss)
temperature fluctuations from day to day
The temperature differences were as capricious as they are typical for April. There were several times when it chang from cool to mild or vice versa. However, the largest difference from one day to the next was only around 7 degrees, which is not unusual for April. This is particularly true when compar with the largest drops and increases in daily maximum temperatures, which in peru phone number library Switzerland can reach between 14 and 17 degrees and are therefore significantly higher. The most significant cooling often occurs in summer after the end of hot periods, because cold snaps often bring additional heavy cloud cover and rain, meaning that the significant sunshine from the previous day is lost.
frosty nights
In terms of frosty nights, April 2023 has so far been in line with the average norm for air frost (measur at a height of 2 metres), which is 3 to 6 nights in the Central Plateau. Ground frost occurr much more frequently, namely on almost half of the nights. Most of the time there was weak to moderate ground frost, but occasionally there was also strong frost (deeper than -4 degrees, measur at 5 cm above grass).
However significant cold snaps with widespread
ground frost in the lowlands, such as in early and mid-April and starts here poptin provides a drag-and-drop itor around the 20th, are nothing unusual for the time of year and show only one side of the climatological range of spring and April weather.
Ice formation on birch branches, Sternenegg region (Schwyzer Prealps).
Ice formation on birch branches, Sternenegg region (Schwyzer Voralpen). alb directory Photo taken on April 20, 2023. (D. Gerstgrasser)
temperature fluctuations last winter
In contrast to April, last winter was subject to large fluctuations in temperature. December began wintry, then it was very mild until mid-January, the second half of January was cold again, and February was mild – so to speak, “from winter to early summer and back to winter”, and all within 30 days. On New Year’s Eve, for example, warm subtropical air brought temperatures of 17 to almost 21 °C locally on the northern side of the Alps.
