The Alps will experience the peak of this warm period today and tomorrow. With brilliant blue skies, maximum temperatures will be close to March records. The high-pressure area then decreases in strength, which means that in the course of tomorrow, a change in weather awaits us. A northerly flow will transport significantly colder air to the Alps and the snow line may temporarily drop significantly again. The precise amounts of snowfall are still very uncertain at the moment.
Heat wave in March
With the culmination of the warm period for the Northern Alps, temperatures of up to 25 degrees could most likely be recorded today and tomorrow. Apart from some veil clouds, it will remain sunny all day. On the south side it may even get a little warmer and the temperatures will continue to rise well above 20 degrees in the afternoons until Saturday.
To reiterate: these particularly high temperatures ensure a strong daily cycle in the avalanche danger. Already in the course of the morning after a few hours of warming and solar radiation, the avalanche danger increases significantly. So it is important to get up very early before it gets too tricky. Below you can see the difference between the avalanche danger in the morning and in the afternoon for Tirol.
Some showers
^The forecasts on wePowder are powdered by our friends at Ortovox
Tomorrow the high pressure area weakens and the flow already turns to the northwest during the day. This may cause some showers to develop on the northern side of the Alps in the late afternoon and evening. Several weather models are expecting some showers, particularly for Bavaria and the Austrian north side. Even thunderstorms could be possible. The snowline would be between 2000 and 2500 meters during these showers. The Swiss weather model “Mitteleuropa Super HD” of Kachelmannwetter shows especially around the Karwendel some showers develop during tomorrow afternoon and evening, but it could also develop on a larger scale on the eastern North side.
There will also remain chances for some rain showers in these regions on Friday. Further south (inneralpine north side) the day will start sunny again, but during the course of the day more clouds will appear from the north. All in all, it won’t be as warm on the north side as it is today and tomorrow. In the western and southern Alps it could be another sunny and warm day. Here it will most likely just stay dry.
Colder
There is quite a bit of uncertainty in the models about what will follow next. Our snow forecast map shows quite some snowfall for Saturday, but the European model hardly goes along with this and limits the snowfall to about 5 to 10 centimeters for Austria. What is certain is that it will cool down considerably from Saturday onwards, especially in the Northeast Alps. The snowline on Saturday in Austria may well below 1000 meters.
Easter Sunday seems quiet with temperatures around normal for the time of year and quite some sunshine, but Easter Monday from the northwest may again give some snow. Unfortunately, this is still too uncertain to go into detail. Also after the Easter weekend it remains very uncertain what will happen. In the ensemble of the American model above can be seen that a cluster of members returns to spring weather, but for example the operational run again shows a return to wintry temperatures with some snow regularly. Friday hopefully more clarity in a new weather report.
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