The Village That Froze Overnight

In January 2018, residents of Versoix, Switzerland, woke to a scene that looked more like a fantasy film than real life.
Every tree, lamppost, car, and bench along the shores of Lake Geneva was entombed in shimmering ice — not just a dusting of frost, but layers of frozen waves that had turned the town into a crystal fortress.

The Ice Siege

The night before, hurricane-force winds known as the Bise swept across Lake Geneva.
The winds pushed massive waves toward the shore. But here’s the twist — the air temperature had plunged far below freezing.
Every splash of water that touched a surface froze instantly, and splash after splash built a shell of ice several inches thick.

A Town in Stasis

By morning, it looked like time had stopped.

• Park benches were buried under solid blocks of ice.

• Street signs were unreadable beneath frozen waves.

• Even bicycles locked to racks were completely sealed, as if trapped in crystal.

Locals joked that the town had been cursed by the White Witch from Narnia. Tourists flooded in to take photos, but for residents, daily life came to a grinding halt — cars couldn’t move, doors wouldn’t open, and even boats along the shore were frozen to their moorings.

When Beauty Becomes Danger

As enchanting as it looked, the ice was dangerous. Slippery streets sent pedestrians sliding. Heavy ice weighed down tree branches until they snapped, creating hazards. The local government brought in crews to chip away at the worst ice, but much of it had to melt naturally, which took weeks.

The Lesson from Versoix

This surreal event shows how quickly nature can turn beauty into paralysis.
A single night of extreme weather transformed an active, living community into a frozen sculpture garden.
It’s also a quiet warning: climate change is making extreme weather events more frequent and more intense — and what happened in Versoix could happen elsewhere, perhaps in places that have never seen such conditions before.