In the Central Alps (Stubai & Ötztaler Alps, Graubünden, Ortler Massif), 20 to 40 centimetres of snow fell on a large scale last weekend. Since yesterday afternoon, the retour d’Est in Piemonte has also started and at this moment it’s dumping in Piemonte. After this heavy snowfall, the Alps will be back into calmer waters this week.
Dump in Piemonte
On the webcams, we can see that it is snowing heavily in Piemonte. Locally, the snowline is even around 1200 metres. It will continue snowing until midnight. The expected one metre of fresh snow seems to be quite feasible for areas like Prali.
Inversion
^The forecasts on wePowder are powdered by our friends at Ortovox
While the south-western Alps are getting hammered, the weather in the other parts of the Alps is fairly calm again. An increasing high-pressure influence ensures that it will actually remain calm throughout the week. The fallen precipitation (input of moisture) in combination with increasing air pressure will create inversion weather. Almost the whole of Central Europe is covered by a layer of clouds, but in many places in the Alps the sun shines abundantly above these low-hanging clouds. At the same time, it could become a lot milder this week, especially higher up. Especially at the end of the week, the zero degree line may temporarily be around 3000 metres again.
In the course of Wednesday, a weak front on the northern side (probably limited to the east of Austria) may provide some additional cloud cover and light precipitation. From the west, however, the high-pressure area will soon take over again.
Back to winter?
After the weekend, a gradual return to winter seems to be possible again. A cooling seems inevitable, but for the time being it does not seem to be accompanied by much precipitation. More snow may follow later next week, but that is of course still far outside the reliable range. In any case, the maps are hopeful, but we’ll have to wait and see!