up to 30 cm recorded in Haut-Rhin, difficult traffic, chaos across the Rhine

« The forecasts are confirmed”: in its bulletin this Friday morning, Météo France keeps the Haut-Rhin department on orange snow-ice alert this morning, and draws up an initial assessment of this particularly early snow episode.

Haut-Rhin at the heart of the disruption

“Eastern Franche-Comté and Haut-Rhin are the areas most affected by the snow episode. Snow depths of 15 to 25 cm are recorded there, continues Météo France. At the end of the night from Thursday to Friday, temperatures sometimes dropped sharply in snowy areas. At 6 a.m., they are generally between -3 to -10 degrees. These negative temperatures in the second part of the night allowed a widespread refreezing of wet and snow-covered roads which could make them very slippery, hence an extension of the orange alert until Friday midday. »

Our Haut-Rhin journalists, for their part, took measurements ranging from 23 to 30 cm of snow in southern Alsace.

Wake up chilly in Haut-Rhin

-5.4°C in the early morning in Basel-Mulhouse, -4.8°C in Colmar-Meyenheim. And down to -8.9°C at Markstein. The Haut-Rhin department woke up this Friday to bitter cold. In Mulhouse, the thermometer had not fallen this low since January 21. In Colmar since January 28.

Transportation very disrupted

At 6:30 a.m., the Inforoute Alsace site showed “difficult” traffic on many major roads, including the RD1066, the A36 and A35 motorways to Duppigheim, even “difficult” in Sundgau and the Three Borders sector. Shortly before 9 a.m., a truck skidded and ended up on the shoulder of the A36, not far from the Porte d'Alsace area. A little further south, near Montbéliard, dozens of motorists were even wrecked on this same highway, report our colleagues from the Eastern Republican.

In a winter viability bulletin dated 6:51 a.m., the CEA roads PC even described traffic as “difficult” on the entire Alsatian secondary network, from Haut-Rhin to the south of the Strasbourg metropolitan area.

Over the Rhine: chaos… and skiing

Across the Rhine, the situation has even turned into chaos in the canton of Basel and on the roads of the Black Forest. The other side of the coin: these snowfalls allowed the ski slopes to reopen.

Up to 2 hours late on trains

The snow has not spared the trains, announces the SNCF: “Traffic is seriously disrupted between Strasbourg and Basel due to the weather conditions. Delays of 60 to 120 minutes and cancellations are expected. The end of the disturbances is estimated around 10 a.m.,” announces the X account @TERGrandEst.

Public transport is also seriously disrupted: in addition to the ban on school transport, announced this Thursday evening by the prefect of Haut-Rhin via the FR-Alert system, the Soléa public transport network indicated that trams and trams trains were stopped, before announcing a resumption of line 1 shortly after 7 a.m. In Colmar, the Trace network indicates that it is functioning but ““Traffic remains delicate, which could lead to delays,” it warns on its website.

Nearly 100 firefighters mobilized

The Haut-Rhin firefighters were in heavy demand during the evening and night: this Friday morning, they recorded 46 interventions, including around fifteen linked to road accidents, and around thirty to clear roads blocked by trees. or torn cables, in support of very heavily mobilized road services. Accidents have sometimes resulted in injuries and transport to hospital, but as of Friday morning, none were considered seriously injured. In total, nearly 100 firefighters were mobilized in the department.