It’s quite a difference. The Alps are facing ‘interesting’ weather this week and in the meanwhile we’re riding cold smoke powder in the Monashees and Selkirks in British Columbia. Without any powderstress. We’re in the CMH Gothics lodge for a couple of days, and words just can’t describe how good the riding is here. You’ll believe it when you ski it.
Short term
The first clouds arrived in the Alps on Sunday and it started snowing in the northwestern regions of the Alps (north of the line Grenoble-Vorarlberg). Because it was a warm front, the snowline rose to 1000-1400 meters, but dropped again during the night. The snowline dropped to 600-900 meters due to the cold front that is hitting the Alps in the night of Sunday to Monday. Today (Monday) the front will move east, 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 Tuesday 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 1600-2000 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.
Powderadvice
First chair on Monday in the resorts where the snow of the northwest stau will fall (western Alps north, northern Alps west, northern Alps central. 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.
Enjoy the powder
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.
Stay stoked
Morris