Cold front with snow - Small snow conditions tour through Europe

Storm Conall’s cold front has reached the Alps and snow is currently falling on the north side. On Friday, eastern Austria will be the only one to get some extra. It will then remain dry until early next week. Therefore, in this forecast I’ll also take you on a small tour through Europe to see what the snow conditions in the other mountain ranges look like at the moment.

Cold front Conall brings snow

The cold front, part of storm Conall, has reached the Northern Alps. It is snowing here during the day today with a focus on the regions of central Switzerland to Vorarlberg. All in all, 10 to 20 centimetres of snow will fall here. Locally in the stau areas maybe even 30 centimetres.

The snowline started at around 1,800 metres, but with the entry of cold air it steadily drops to altitudes of around 1,000 metres. From the west, the high-pressure influence increases rapidly, but the eastern areas in Austria are still in this northern flow for longer. It will continue to snow in these eastern regions even on Friday. The bigger accumulations only take place in a very limited region east of Salzburgerland. In ski areas like Hochkar, another 10 to 25 centimetres could fall with a snowline of 500 to 800 metres.

Our forecast also shows a lot more west, for areas like Hinterstoder, Tauplitz and Loser larger amounts of fresh snow, but in most models the strongest snow accumulations are really a lot more east. Therefore, I expect less in these areas in the end than this map shows here.

As Chris wrote yesterday, things will soon get warmer again over the weekend. The western and northern Alps warm up faster than the eastern and southern Alps. There, the cold air will linger a bit longer under the influence of the cold pit, but it will get warmer there too on Sunday.

New cold front early next week

Our snow forecast maps show snow mainly for the French and Swiss Alps. The amounts still vary somewhat in the models, but another 10 to 20 centimetres should be possible. In the process, the snowline will drop from above 1,500 metres to around 1,200 - 1,400 metres. In the French Alps, the snowline will start a bit higher still (possibly temporarily at 2000 metres). The rest of the week seems to be changeable for now, with frequent fronts from the west. With this snowfall, though, the snowline could potentially become a point of concern.

Short tour of Europe

Pyrenees

We also take a look at Europe’s other mountain ranges to see what the snow cover is like there. In the Pyrenees, the webcams speak volumes. Here, winter is nowhere to be seen. On both the north and south sides there is no base. Until the weekend it will remain warm and dry. Monday’s cold front will also cool things down here, but there won’t be much snow until the end of next week.

Scandinavia

In a few sentences, it is of course difficult to describe the details and variability, but in general things are looking a lot brighter in Scandinavia. In most parts, winter has begun and it has been quite cold over the past week. Regionally, there has also been a good amount of snow. On the west coast especially higher up, but also in, for example, Møre og Romsdal, Trøndelag and northern Norway. In northern Norway (parts of Troms & Finnmark), a blizzard will follow this Friday with very strong wind gusts and lots of snow up to sea level. The Norwegian meteorological service speaks of a very severe storm that could become one of the strongest in the past decade for many places.

Snow for the Balkans

In the Balkans, winter now also seems to be slowly but surely approaching. For large parts of southeastern Europe, the cut-off low is going to bring a lot of snow higher up in the coming days. This will be the first serious snowfall for the higher elevations here, as also shown in our forecast.