One of the best things of the preseason is staring at the weather maps. Autumn is often a turbulent period in which cold air from the north makes an attempt to travel south, but the warm air is still fighting back. And there’s more happing in the atmosphere as I’ve described in this article. All those parameters are looking good! But the short term is bringing something interesting: a good old-fashioned northern Stau! Snow is coming down from the Norwegian Sea to the Alps. And the good thing is that both the American as the European model are showing this snowfall on their maps!
It’s quite something to say that the northern Stau will arrive with the intensity you can see above, let alone that 54 centimeters will come down in St. Anton. But the maps are looking good and I’ll keep looking at my Powder Dashboard the next couple of days. The ensembles are looking good as well. When you look at the illustrations below you might think: what the hell is this? You can see the expectations of multiple models for a point in Austria and a point in France. The upper set of lines is showing the temperature (both dropping from November 1st) and the lower set of lines is showing the precipitation (greater chances of precipitation after November 1st).
In short: dropping temperatures and lots of precipitation is coming up as a result of a northern current. But the devil is in the details. If the high pressure area over the Atlantic is getting stronger and will move to the east, than there won’t be anything that comes close to a northern Stau. If that same high pressure area will get weaker: jackpot!
To speculate a bit more: check out the map for November 6th. If this map will deliver, well, than winter 16/17 will start with a bang!
More updates the next couple of days!
Stay stoked! Morris