What to do if it rains in berner oberland region

When are you going to be there?

There are some tips here from forum member shoe. Scroll down to Weather and Rainy day activities.

https://lauterbrunnenhiking.wordpress.com/tips/

Where in the Berner Oberland, exactly? Activities around the Lauterbrunnen Valley area for inclement days would be different than those I might recommend in Kandersteg, for example.

Where in the Berner Oberland, exactly?

Ah yes sorry I forgot it’s a big area. My base is in wengen.

i'm nervously hoping accuweather is not accurate.

It isn't. The weather here is very hard to predict. There is a reason why you can't see that far ahead on MeteoSwiss. A reliable weather forecast more than 48 hours out does not exist in this part of the world. And many internet sites use the US GFS system to predict the weather, and for the Alps all that does is make a wild guess.

My suggestion: Get up early. Mornings are usually better than afternoons. On the days itself it is usually pretty well possible to find out when it is going to rain, and when not, and you can just plan around that. Or ignore the rain. As Swiss mums tell to their children: It's only water, and you are not made out of sugar.

As Swiss mums tell to their children: It's only water, and you are not made out of sugar.
I love that lol!!!

Thanks for the advice.

With shoes, if its a clear day, do i still need shoes that are water proof up on the mountains. I'm not planning to hike much, the most i'll do is the Mannlichen panaromic trail and Bachalpsee. Would there be snow in June such that I need waterproofing?

Regarding shoes: Even on clear days paths sometimes get muddy. So I would want shoes that you can walk through about a cm of water with. And that you do not mind getting dirty.

Ok thanks. When you said to start early, how early is early? 6am 7am 8am?

Or normal mode of operation is to head out around 7, and have breakfast at one of the bakeries...

ok thanks. By that time there will be enough light to see the mountain conditions on the webcams?

it will rain. every day. sometimes only for an hour, sometimes longer.

the mountain webcams run 24/7.

One of the things we did on a grim day where hiking at altitude was inadvisable, was to “joyride” using our BO Regional Pass. Train to Kleine Scheidegg - Jungfraujoch train to Eigergletscher - Eiger Express gondola to Grindelwald Terminal - BOB to Grindelwald for lunch and shopping - BOB to Terminal - Gondola to Männlichen. All included in your BORP.

Another day (we had a 5 day stretch of marginal weather in fall of 2022) rode the train to Thun and took a lunch cruise to Interlaken. Thun is also a nice town to wander with an old town pedestrian area.

You can walk along the river between Lauterbrunnen, Zweilutschinen and Wilderswil (walk between any two or all three). We’ve done that many times in cloudy or drizzly weather. Great view of the BOB running plus a lively river.

Walking the Lauterbrunnen Valley from Stechelberg back to town is lovely in any weather. (Well, it is better in sun!)

Take a packable waterproof hat and you can do almost anything.

thank you for all the suggestions and links everyone.

@Laurel what is BOB??

BOB is the Berner Oberland Bahn, the train between Interlaken and both Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. You will become very familiar with BOB.

Ah ok, thanks

Thank you for this thread. With the horrible news coming out of Zermatt, I am getting a bit worried about our 4 days in Mürren, as the predictions for the next two weeks are rain, rain, and more rain.

It does give some comfort to know that predictability is nil more than just a few days out. We will have a delightful time in the rain; I just need to make sure the family is well equipped for the cooler weather with the rain.

Keep the ideas coming! thanks

Bern is a cool small city, very walkable, with gorgeous fountains, a cathedral (climb to the top for great views), arcaded shops, a rosegarten at the far end, above river Aar, a couple bears, nice cafes, and an old section along the river (500 yrs old).
Oh,you can also schedule a visit to Einstein's apartment, AND the clock tower!
Great for a rainy day!

Don’t use AccuWeather - MeteoBlue & MeteoSwiss are better for Switzerland in my experience. And Bergfex to check webcams.

the predictions for the next two weeks are rain, rain, and more rain.

There are no predictions for the next two weeks. it is not possible to predict the weather here that fare in advance, even though some website will give you a guess...

Basically what you need to know about the weather here:
- It is very variable. It is rarely the same from one hour to the next. Usually better in the morning.
- It is hard to predict. Reliable forecast more than 48 hours out do not exist.

My advise is:
- Get up early. It is better in the morning. The last two days, and today as well, all started out sunny. Yesterday the day ended with rain, and so will probably today.
- The official Swiss meteo site is https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/. They can give you a good hour by hour forecast that you can use to plan your day. But it is indeed common for it to rain at least once every other day or so. How do you think our landscape stays so green?

Normal summer weather sees days that start out sunny, with blue skies. Then during the day cloud cover increases, and in the late afternoon we often have showers, and even thunderstorms. That is normal. So get up early.

Don’t use AccuWeather

Accuweather thinks there is going to be a thunderstorm in Wengen around 11 today. We will see. The main problem with such websites is that their models do not have a high enough resolution to do an accurate forecast for this area. I live 15 minutes walking outside Wengen village, and the weather around our house is sometimes completely different from what they have in the village. That is how weird mountain weather sometimes is.