Swiss wake up to snowfall in July
The Swiss summer has been a bit of a disappointment so far, but few people expected snowfall in July – that was so heavy it closed several mountain passes on Thursday.
The Säntis mountain in north-eastern Switzerland saw 13 centimetres of snow. It is very unusual to see snow below 2,000 metres at this time of the year, but it was falling as low as 1,600 metres in some parts of Switzerland.
The Susten, Furka and Nufenen passes were closed as a result of the surprising dose of winter weather. The canton Graubünden holiday resort of Arosa also saw a fair blanket of snow, as evidenced by this video (below).
There are also flood and landslide warnings in several lower lying parts of Switzerland. But the weather prognosis is for warmer, drier conditions over the next few days.
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