PowderAlert #5 is on its way!

Countdown has started!

PowderAlert #5 is on its way, even though the maps aren’t showing anything yet and probably will not show anything till Wednesday. I announced it before, but PowderAlert #5 is on its way. The only thing that is NOT cool is that I twisted my ankle quite hard last Wednesday. I’m walking around on crutches for three days now and I hope I don’t have to recover very long. More news about that for me on Wednesday.

You’ll find the weather for the coming days, more about PowderAlert #5 and the conditions in mountain regions around the world in this article. The winter had a good start in the Alps, but you’ll find a big snowcover in other mountain regions as well. Daily reports are coming in through Powfinder, like the report from Granvalira below. You’ll find more reports here.

Reports are coming in, but freeriders are sending in videos as well. And some of them are quite good! If you’re a responsible freerider and you want to blog on wePowder, let us know! But first: the short term forecast for the Alps.

Short term

The high pressure system Ulrike is dominating the weather in the Alps and the Pyrenees. The fronts that brought snow to those two mountain regions are far away now, and the Alps will be dominated by Ulrike till Thursday. The air temperature will rise temporarily, but the air is dry and the sun isn’t that strong, so it won’t influence the snowcover a lot. But the weather will change after Thursday.

The high Ulrike is dominating

The jetstream is westsouthwest at the moment towards Norway and the NAO-index is pretty positive, but this is about to change. The NAO-index will drop to neutral or even negative. A strong north/south current will start and it will push cold and humid air to the south. It’s time for snow from the north!

Long term

GFS and ECWMF agree that winter will kick in again from Friday. If you don’t have mounted your wintertires yet, this is the moment. A very active and strong low pressure area is going south towards the Alps. The core pressure is around 965 hPa. It’s not quite sure what will happen after Friday. GFS was indicating a so-called Faeroer direction, but the ECMWF (and now the GFS as well) is guessing it will follow the Baltic direction. This Baltic direction will result in a lot freshies for Austria. Especially when the depression will stick around for a couple of days. An update on the forecast will follow tomorrow.

Other mountain regions: the Pyrenees

The Pyrenees had a kick-ass start of the winter. Especially the eastern and northern Pyrenees got a lot of snow. The eastern parts of the southern Pyrenees are loaded with snow and it might be a good idea for a roadtrip. Fly into Barcelona and you’ll ride powder within a couple of hours. Please mind that I don’t expect any significant snow the next nine days. You can find a snowcover of 120 to 200 centimeters.

Abbruzo

You can find 100 to 200 centimeters of freshies in the Italian Abbruzo. It’s snowing again today, but the snowline is rising to 2200 meters.

High Tatra

They had a good start in the High Tatra. Lots of freshies the last couple of weeks and more snow is on its way with PowderAlert #5. Time for a trip east?

Norway

Lots of snow the next couple of days (but also lots of wind). You might wanna wait until the storms are gone.

Canada and the US

Canada and the USA had a good start as well. The highest peaks in BC have a base of over to meters and another 30-60 centimeters is expected the next couple of days.

A great start of the winter!

Stay stoked

Morris