Swiss Lake Nearly Dries Up Amid Unprecedented Drought and Heat

Lake Doubs, straddling the border between Switzerland and France and usually packed with tourists and boats every summer, has almost completely dried up this year. Locals say the water now flows only through a narrow channel down the middle of the lakebed, while the nearby Saut du Doubs waterfall has all but vanished.

The culprit is a brutal heatwave combined with a severe lack of rainfall. The Doubs River, which normally feeds the lake, has shrunk so much it can no longer keep it filled.

According to Switzerland's national weather service, MeteoSwiss, the region has received only half its usual rainfall since April. Experts are comparing the current drought to the country's worst dry spells in decades — 1976, 2003 and 2018. The agency's long-range forecasts suggest the rainfall deficit will persist at least until mid-August.

"Droughts like this are hitting us one after another with a frequency we've never seen before. It's taking a real toll on us, because there's simply nothing we can do to fight it," Ivan Dürig, a local tour boat operator, told Reuters.

He said he has already had to lay off his crew and fears heavy financial losses this year: the lake's water level is now more than nine metres below average and continues to drop by roughly 22 centimetres a day.

The drought comes on top of what is already Switzerland's second extreme heatwave this year. The first struck at the end of June and was one of the most intense in the country's history — many areas recorded ten consecutive days of such high temperatures for the first time ever. Then, at the end of July, a fresh wave of heat swept across the country along with the rest of Central Europe.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz