"Major loss of time" TCS reports traffic congestion at the Gotthard north portal

Due to snowfall, the police temporarily closed access to the Gotthard north portal. The highway is now open again, but major delays are to be expected due to congestion.

Heavy snowfall in places has caused disruption to road traffic in the Swiss Alps since Sunday morning. In front of the north portal of the Gotthard tunnel, the police had to stop traffic for a while to clear the snow from the highway.

This was announced by a media spokesperson for the Uri cantonal police to the Keystone-SDA news agency on request. He confirmed a road traffic status report from the Touring Club of Switzerland (TCS) on the short message service X.

As a result, there was a traffic jam of up to seven kilometers in length between the Altdorf and Göschenen junctions. The TCS also reported an obstruction due to snowfall on the San Bernardino route. And the A 9 was closed in both directions for trailer trucks and articulated lorries on the Simplon Pass due to snowfall.

The weather services had announced the arrival of a cold front in Switzerland on Sunday - with snowfall in some places down to the lowlands and valleys. By Christmas Eve, meteorologists expected up to 125 centimetres of snow in central areas of the Alps within 75 hours.

The Vallascia measuring station of the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (WSL) recorded 39 centimetres of fresh snow in the last 24 hours at midday on Sunday. There - at an altitude of around 2300 meters - the snow depth was already 84 centimeters. This measuring station is located above Airolo IT in the Gotthard region.

The meteorologists were also expecting a lot of wind from Sunday. As can be seen on the MeteoSwiss website on Sunday afternoon, at 2 p.m. on the Chasseral BE, the wind swept over the Jura summit at 103.3 kilometers per hour.