It’s was pretty good in the southern Alps the last couple of days. They got a lot of freshies last week and combined with the colder air that resulted in great powder. But the period of cold temperatures is almost over. A powerful western jetstream is developing above the Atlantic Ocean and that will determine the weather in the Alps, Scandinavia and the Pyrenees next week.
Western jetstream on the Atlantic Ocean
Short term
The first clouds will arrive in the Alps on Sunday and it will start snowing in the northwestern regions of the Alps (north of the line Grenoble-Vorarlberg). Because it’s a warm front, the snowline will rise to 1000-1400 meters, but will go dwon later in the afternoon. The snowline will lower to 600-900 meters due to the cold front that is hitting the Alps in the night of Sunday to Monday. The front will move east on Monday, due to a high pressure area.
You can expect around 20-35 centimeter of freshies in the west- and northweststau of the French northern Alps, Wallis, the northern Swiss alpine ridge and the Vorarlberg till Monday morning. Enough for a small PowderAlert #17
Tuesday and Wednesday will start sunny and warm, but later on Wednesday some clouds may appear in the northern Alps. And that will be the start of one nasty front that will bring warm air, rain and snow. This will only be the case in the northern Alps. It will remain sunny and dry in the western and southern Alps. It will snow above 1700-2000 meters on Wednesday and Thursday. It will rain below that altitude. The cold front will arrive Thursday afternoon and that will bring some colder air that will cause the snow line to drop to a 1000 meters. You can expect 10-40 centimer of freshies above 2000 meter between Wednesday and Friday.
The details above are subject to change, because a weststau just might change it plans.
Powderadvice
First chair on Monday in the resorts where the snow of the northwest stau will fall. There’s still powder to be found in those resorts on Tuesday. Wednesday won’t be really good. It will be dry and sunny in the inneralpine resorts, but the first warm air and rain are arriving. The temperatures will drop on Thursday. First chair on Friday in the north stau areas of the Alps.
Long term
The long term is still pretty unstable. Something might happen around 2-5 February. The models are showing a serious northstau for four days straight, but there are too many unstable factors at the moment for a PowderAlert.
It won’t be easy to find good powder this week, but I’ll do my best to give you advice to put you in the right place in the right time. You’ll have to go to the northwest for some powder on Monday.
Stay stoked
Morris