Massive Swiss snowfall levels buck the trend

This week, the Swiss resort towns of Andermatt, Zermatt and Davos have all seen record or near-record snow levels. But it's an outlier in a years-long trend of declining snowfall totals.

2012 was the last time in the past decade that so much snow fell in a single day. In Davos and Zermatt, the snow level as of yesterday eclipsed that total. As a result, the whole area is on high alertexternal link for avalanches, and several towns have been cut off from transport networks.

But on the whole, snowfall levels in all three resorts have been on the decline in the past several years, as the darker colours on these graphics show.

Scenes from Val d'Aiviers in canton Valais, north of Zermatt, show what record snowfall looks like for the people living there.

Text by Veronica DeVore, swissinfo.ch

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