Over one meter of snow already came down in the Piedmont the past 60 hours. But what about the other regions in the Alps? Austria and Switzerland are dying for snow. So the question is: when can we expect a northern Stau? Let's start the forecast with a message filled with hope. Because the American model came up with the weather map below. Anyway, I'll start with the Piedmont, but scroll down to the bottom to read more about the northern Alps.
In this forecast:
Between 50-120 cm of fresh snow came down in the Italian Piedmont, east of the Aosta and the resorts in the southern French Alps and the Haute Maurienne close to the border. The most (and best) snow fell in the Piedmont where the wind was not as strong as in the French resorts.
Because of the snowfall, the temperature, the wind, the old layer of surface hoar, old layers in the snowpack or the hard top layer, the new snow bonds pourly with snowpack. The avalanche danger has increased from LOW to CONSIDERABLE or even HIGH in the last 60 hours. Check out this article again and adapt your plans to it.
I already published a list with resorts yesterday, but I've added some suggestions. Check it out:
The resort below opens on Friday the 23rd of December:
You have to pay attention to the warm air coming in today. Fortunately, the skies in the night to Thursday will be clear and this allows the snowcover to radiate its moisture. You can ride great powder on shadow faces above 2000 meters on Thursday and Friday.
Check out the map below again. It's the output of the American model and that offers hope. Especially the northern Alps in Austria have good chances of snowfall according to this output.
A small change in the weather maps is responsible for this positive output. The high pressure area above the Alps (which is there for a couple of weeks) moved a bit to the west compared to yesterday. It creates room for a current from the north and this should bring snow to the north side of the main alpine ridge around Christmas. It's definitely not sure yet, but if offers hope and perspective. And hope is something we all can use these days.
Stay stoked. Morris