A quarter less snow Swiss glaciers start the summer poorly protected
Bad starting position for the Swiss glaciers: there is a quarter less snow on the glaciers nationwide than there usually is at the end of winter. On some glaciers, the snow cover is even thinner than ever before.
08.05.2026, 06:58
08.05.2026, 07:42
SDA
The Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos) measured the amount of snow on 25 glaciers in April and May. Extrapolated to all glaciers, the deficit is 25 percent compared to the average for the years 2010 to 2020, as the measurement report published on Friday shows. This winter is therefore one of the five winters with the least snow in the past two decades.
"The starting position for the summer is therefore poor," said glacier researcher Matthias Huss to the Keystone-SDA news agency.
The amount of snow varied greatly depending on the region. The lack of snow was most pronounced in south-eastern Switzerland. On the Pers and Murtèl glaciers in the Engadine, the experts even registered new negative records for the winter mass balance.
