It’s snowing again on the north side of the main alpine ridge since Saturday night. The really cold air is pretty much gone and the snow that’s coming down right now will improve the conditions. Already 30-80 cm of fresh snow came down last and there’s more on its way. The French Alps will have to wait a bit longer for the snow to fall, but the maps look more and more positive. In this forecast:
- 40 cm of fresh snow
- PowderAdvice the next couple of days
- More turbulent weather in the forecast from Tuesday
40 cm of fresh snow
It’s snowing again on the north side of the Alps. You can expect about 20-40 cm, locally up to 50 cm of fresh snow in eastern Switzerland and Vorarlberg, Tyrol, Salzburg, the north of Styria and Nieder- and Oberösterreich till Sunday night. Further west, but especially to the south, less snow will fall and there’s simply no precipitation in northern Italy.
It will be dry on the north side of the Alps on Monday and Tuesday. The sun comes out and this will be great days (also because it won’t be as cold as last Friday). Annoying for those whose holidays are over, but if you want to ride powder the next 72 hours, you have to go to the north side of the Alps (as in: Austria). And it was already ON in those regions during PowderAlert #4.
You can check out more reports HERE.
PowderAdvice the next couple of days
The snow was pretty deep the last few days, but the base was missing in a lot of resorts. On top of that, the snow that came down above 2000 meters came down on an old and weak layer of snow. A lot of avalanches were reported in Austria and Switzerland and the situation will remain tense the next couple of days. In short: lots of fresh snow, wind and a change of the temperature. The avalanche situation is especially critical above the tree line.
It’s still early in the season. I’d go for resorts that already had something that looked like a base below 2000 meters (as in the Northern Alps East), where you can find trees (with a base between the trees, think about larch trees) or alpine meadows where the chance of hitting a branch, rock or another shark is small and that got a lot of snow last week.
TIP: check the avalanche forecast on the resort pages on wePowder or lawinen.org
If you want to have more information on where to go, you can also start with Mountain Academy. This gives you access to knowledge to make better decisions on where to go, ride better powder and become more aware of alpine risks.
My PowderAdvice for Sunday/Monday/Tuesday? Check out the regions below. There’s still plenty of accommodation to be found in those resorts (check it out here).
You can definitely ride lots of powder in the resorts in the Glanerland (Switzerland), Vorarlberg and Tyrol (Kleinwalsertal and the nearby valleys). Of course the Salzburgerland and the north of Styria will be ON as well the next 72 hours.
More turbulent weather in the forecast from Tuesday
The weather will remain turbulent after PowderAlert #5. A first front will try to bring fresh snow to the French northern Alps and the north side of the Pyrenees on Tuesday. It will succeed in the Pyrenees (according to the latest calculations), but it won’t snow as much in the northwest of the Alps. Fortunately it will start snowing more heavily in the west and north of the Alps later this week.
Stay stoked. Morris