A Blog of the ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences
In the previous post we got a first glimpse at the hot summer 2026 and the measurement network in Winterthur. Now the season is over and the summer 2026 will be remembered as a season of relentless heat. From early June through the end of August, residents experienced repeated heatwaves, prolonged warm nights, and only […]
If you stepped outside last week, you didn’t need a thermometer to tell you that summer had arrived. At the end of June, Switzerland experienced a historic heatwave, with over 40 meteorological stations across the country recording new temperature records for the month. Maximum daytime temperatures exceeded 38°C at several locations, and many regions experienced […]
Once again, it’s Hot in the city! with yesterday’s air temperatures above 30 °C across Switzerland and exceeding 34 °C in Basel. Cities struggle with this excessive heat and are exploring ways to protect their citizens and make the outdoor spaces more pleasant. We have already written about the exciting outdoor spray mist cooling pilot […]
In our endeavor to comprehend urban climate and the emergence and impact of heat islands, we have already undertaken several projects, as regular readers of our blog are aware. These include temperature measurements in the cities of Zurich and Winterthur. While these two measurement networks differ in their setup – in Zurich, the measurement stations […]
Whereas Billy Idol enjoyed the hot summer nights in New York City, many urban dwellers nowadays wish for colder urban environments. We at ZAV investigate the urban climate and potential measures to mitigate the increasingly high temperatures within the urban heat island. Zurich’s dense urban measurement network provides an ideal dataset for comparison with and […]
Almost exactly 4 years ago, we started planning an urban climate measurement network for Zurich together with meteoblue AG as part of an Innosuisse project. If we had known at the time how much work it would take to set up and maintain such a measuring network, we would probably have left it alone. Fortunately, […]
Cities globally seek to improve the quality of living and consequently pay great attention to the effects of new constructions on the surrounding. Furthermore, there is a great demand for evaluating methods to mitigate the urban heat island effect. Exemplarily, the city of Zurich mapped out strategies on how to approach the urban heat problem […]
Although the official summer season is far from ending, it is probably safe to say already now that Switzerland is currently experiencing one of the sunniest, driest and hottest summer of the last decade. As published within the MeteoSwiss Climate-Blog article from July 29th 2022, July 2022 is ranking as the fourth warmest July (after […]
Passersby strolling across Turbinenplatz in Zurich these days, are treated with an unusual sight: A construction made of wood, strings and a metallic ring , hovering a few meters above ground and spraying a fine mist into the air, creating a cloud-like image. It is an installation by the city of Zurich, inteded to bring […]
Our group has been running an uniquely dense temperature and humidity measurement network in the city of Zurich between 2019 and early 2022, as you might remember from our blogpost from 2020. In early 2022, the non-automatically reporting stations were removed from the wild and the automatic ones are still out there gathering useful information […]