It locally rained up to 2400 meters on the north side of the Alps yesterday, the sun was shining on the south side of the Alps and Boxing Day started mild. An active cold front will arrive today that will bring snow to the Salzburgerland, Styria and Ober- en Niederösterreich. The northern stau resorts in these regions can expect some significant snowfall with heavy winds. In this forecast:
- Snow and rain
- Cold front coming in
- Best snow in the Alps: the Piedmont
- Don’t expect any significant snow until 2017
Snow and rain
It was raining and snowing heavily on the north side of the Alps yesterday. Especially the northern Stau resorts in Styria and Ober- and Niederösterreich got between 20-40 cm of snow, but thanks to the rising temperatures it’s hard to find anything that feels like fresh snow.
Cold front coming in
In the meantime, storm Barbara is on her way. An active cold front is heading to the east of the Alps, thanks to a strong current from the northwest. This will cause the temperature to drop during the day. The snow line will drop to 1500 meters at first and will drop to 700 meters later. It’s still snowing lightly today, but it will intensify on Tuesday and it will keep on snowing till Wednesday. Expect between 20-40 cm of fresh snow (locally even more), especially in Styria and Ober- and Niederösterreich. The heavy wind that will transport a lot of snow will be a problem.
Best snow in the Alps: the Piedmont
The [reports of the past few days] (http://wepowder.com/report) are clear. If you want to experience winter how it’s meant to be (so without artificial white ribbons on a brown mountain) you’ll have to go to the Piedmont. An alternative is Scandinavia. The temperature is rising over there right now, but will drop again with lots of snowfall from the first of January.
Don’t expect any significant snow until 2017
It hasn’t been snowing in the Alps for weeks, but even in the Sahara some snow came down last week. There’s snow to be found pretty much everywhere in the northern hemisphere, except in western Europe. And that’s not going to change until the beginning of 2017.
We’ll have to wait till 2017 when the jetstream will choose a path that allows storms to penetrate the entire Alps again. We have to be patient or have to travel to Scandinavia or the US to ride powder.
Stay stoked. Morris