The Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology has been carrying out meteorological measurements in Switzerland since 1864. Never has September achieved such high temperatures here in Switzerland as this year. It is by far the warmest September since the beginning of the measurement series (MeteoSwiss). October also showed its sunny side at the beginning, with summer temperatures in many places, and in some cases the temperatures broke the October records.
In Lucerne, for example, temperatures of up to 27°C were recorded at the beginning of October, and in the Basel agglomeration a new temperature record of 27.7°C was set in mid-October.
The boxplots below show how warm this year's September and October temperatures were above average compared to previous years.
The boxplots show the respective monthly temperatures for September (left) and October (right) from 2010 to 2023 in Basel. Please note that for this year's October values only the days up to 17 October were taken into account. It can be clearly seen that the mean value (black line within the boxes) is significantly higher in September and October 2023 than it was in the years before.
Only last weekend there was an abrupt drop in temperature due to a cold front coming from the northwest. This lifted the warm air masses and, in addition to the arrival of cold air, also caused precipitation.
The history+ function of meteoblue makes it possible to create images of past weather variables in a matter of seconds. For example, the figure below shows the abrupt temperature change in Basel with the arrival of the cold front last weekend. The data for Basel are available free of charge.
However, there is no sign of a prolonged cold spell. Already in the middle of the week, the temperatures will rise slightly during the day and also at night the temperatures in the central region will often remain in the double-digit range. Furthermore, we can be curious about the Föhn wind arriving towards the end of the week and the development of the temperatures in the next two weeks.
If you want to get an outlook on the future, you can use climate+ to observe various scenarios of the development of different weather conditions. climate+ offers immediate access to data for climate forecasts and climate risk assessments. The service includes climate forecast data for temperature and precipitation for the four RCP emission scenarios used by the IPCC, 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.5. The data is available for any location worldwide in hourly resolution, with a forecast horizon extending to the year 2100. This allows you to see how temperatures will change in the coming decades under different conditions. Access is also available free of charge for Basel.
