BASEL - The MeteoSwiss station at Basel-Binningen reached 39.7 degrees on Thursday, equalling the highest temperature ever measured in Switzerland north of the Alps. The previous mark was set at Geneva-Cointrin in 2015. South of the Alps, Biasca in Ticino reached 39.2 degrees on the same afternoon.
New daily maxima also fell at Buchs-Aarau, at 38.6 degrees, at Zurich-Kloten, at 38.3, and at Lucerne, at 36.8. City heat offices that issued their first serious warnings earlier in the month, covered in our 2 July note, spent Thursday on the practical list: trains, hospitals, and people who live on the top floor of buildings that were designed to keep heat in.
A record on top of a water shortage
The temperature is not a separate story from the drought. Hot air on dry ground is why rivers have not recovered and why irrigation costs are already in farm accounts. Two days ago MeteoSwiss was still describing July rain as a pause, not a repair. That dispatch is here.
Health advice on a 39-degree day in Basel is ordinary and easy to skip: shade, water, no sport at 15:00, a check on neighbours. The Rhine path looks like a postcard until the haze sits on the water. Employers in the port and on building sites do not get to treat it as scenery.
Nights are the other measurement
A daily maximum makes the headline. Tropical nights, when the temperature never falls below 20 degrees, decide whether a city sleeps. Ticino has been counting those nights all month. Thursday's number in Basel is the one people will quote: 39.7, tied with Geneva, and not a figure the Plateau was built for.