Hardly any snow in sight

The Alps are experiencing a few cooler days due to a north-westerly flow. After a cold front with some snow in the Northern Alps yesterday, it again snowed a bit last night, but it didn’t really bring much. Until the middle of next week, we will have to deal with a gradual warming trend. After that it might get colder again, but this will not be accompanied by a lot of fresh snow. All parts of the Alps will stay mostly dry for the time being.

Some snowfall in the north

^The weather forecasts on wePowder are powdered by our friends from Ortovox

From Thursday to Friday, a cold front followed from the northwest with some 10 to locally 30 centimeters of snow, especially in the northwestern Alps. Especially in the inneralpine regions it cleared up. Last night, the intensity of the snowfall increased again and some 5 to 10 centimetres of snow fell down to the lowest valleys.

As of now, the snowfall is limited to mainly the eastern areas of Austria. The West Alps already started the day with sunshine and the rest of the Alps are now also clearing up quickly. In the coming days, a strong area of high pressure will lie northeast of the Alps with a core over the Baltic States. A large part of the Alps will continue to enjoy sun-drenched conditions, but in the Eastern Alps some snow may still fall.

Eastern high flow

Due to the location of the high pressure area and the easterly flow higher up, the Eastern Alps will temporarily receive more clouds and some snow on Monday. On Tuesday, this snowfall will enter the Po Valley and the southernmost ski resorts in the Southern Alps and eventually the Piedmont will get some snow, but this will only be a cosmetic layer of a few centimetres.

It remains a bit of a duel between hot and cold over the Alps, with Austria (and the rest of the Eastern Alps) on the advantageous cold side and the Western Alps on the contrary in somewhat milder air masses. In the Western Alps, this easterly flow has no impact. Slowly but surely it will get milder here at the beginning of next week. However, you won’t have to worry about temperatures in the Western Alps, as they will end up being only slightly above normal for the time of year.

Front approaches, but does not reach the Alps

In the course of Tuesday, a front will approach as part of a strong depression on the Atlantic, but due to the proximity of high pressure, this precipitation will not reach the Alps initially. However, the Alps will have to deal with increasing cloud cover from the northwest from Tuesday afternoon. During Wednesday afternoon and evening, some precipitation may follow from the west due to a short-wave trough approaching. According to the current model calculations, these amounts are still negligible for the Alps, but the details of the European model do not yet match the American model, so maybe there will be some changes in the upcoming model runs.