Some snow chances for the northern side

After the snow on the southern side, calm returned to the Alps. On the northern side, with a moist western to north-western flow, it still snowed a bit above 800 to 1,200 metres, but later this week it warms up again. There are some snow chances on Friday and next Monday for the northern Alps though.

Some snow showers

On the northern side of the Alps, there was some snow last night. During the day, some typical March/April-showers were already falling from spring-like stacked clouds with a mix of rain, graupel and higher up snow. With 5 to 10 centimetres, we don’t have to expect much from it, but together with last Sunday’s 10 centimetres, it’s a refresher. For example, with the 20 centimetres of fresh snow in Obertauern, it still looks pretty wintry again.

Spring-like temperatures

On Tuesday during the day, spring weather returns with increasing high pressure from the southwest. With a mix of sun and (mostly high) clouds, increasingly milder air flows in, with up to 12 degrees at 1500 metres in the Western Alps on Thursday and Friday and then in the Northern Alps. The freezing level shoots up again to values around 3,000 metres. In the graph you can see the temperature anomalies at around 1,500 metres compared to normal for this time of year. This air mass is up to 15 degrees warmer than normal.

Increasingly changeable, but not quite convincing yet

The cooling that was on the cards for a long time seems to be coming, but we continue to face temperatures of around or just above normal, so it won’t be really cold! There is no sign yet of a long cold spell with lots of snow as well. We now have to make do with the somewhat increasing changeability that is on the cards from Friday. With high pressure to the west of the Alps, the Northern Alps for now seem to have the best papers on some fresh snow, but it is certainly not conclusive yet. Friday first follows a cold front with 5 to 15 centimetres of snow on the north side, with more possibly following from the north on Monday.