If you woke up in Switzerland on Tuesday morning to find temperatures of -5 or -10 outside, then you are living somewhere relatively warm. According to Meteo Centrale, whose website lists the 20 coldest places every night, winter has truly arrived in Switzerland.
Frozen car in Switzerland in 2012 – © Akulamatiau | Dreamstime.com
Eleven of the places in Meteo Centrale’s top 20 coldest sit at altitudes above 2,000 metres above sea level. For example the Kleines Matterhorn at 3,874 m, with a low of -22.3 C, was the highest and coldest of the high altitude eleven. It wasn’t the coldest on the list however, and many of the coldest places are towns with shivering inhabitants living at much lower altitudes. Three towns on the list, at altitudes of around 1,000 metres, are La Brévine (1,050 metres), Les Ponts-de-Martel (998 metres) and Rothenthurm-Mösli (914 metres). Last night these towns froze. Brévine, in the Canton of Neuchatel reached a low of -23.4 C, Les Ponts-de-Martel, also in Neuchatel dropped to -18.2 C, and Rothenthurm-Mösli, in the canton of Schwyz reached -16.7 C. The coldest place on the list was the uninhabited weather station of Glattalp (1858 m), in canton Schwyz with -30.9 C.
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According to Meteo Swiss, on 12 January 1987 La Brévine broke the record for the lowest Swiss temperature ever: – 41.8 C.
Altitude and latitude aren’t enough to predict temperatures across the elaborate topographical mosaic of Switzerland.
The maps below show locations.
Glattalp
La Brévine
Les Ponts-de-Martel
Rothenthurm-Mösli
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