Persistent winter weather with possibly more snow for Austria

It has been dumping in the Western Alps! A total of up to a metre of snow has fallen locally over the past three days, mainly due to yesterday’s hefty snowfall. It not only produced stunning pictures like the one above in Les Marecottes, but also excellent conditions. The Western Alps, meanwhile, are back to a decent level in terms of snow levels. Further east, snow accumulations are rapidly decreasing and are still somewhat disappointing. In Slovenia, a nice layer fell again for the third day in a row, now around 10 to 20 centimetres of snow. Light snow may again fall here tomorrow.

Wintry conditions

This week, the Alps are under the influence of a large trough that is creating winter weather. Multiple small low-pressure cores roam around and over the Alps, causing all sorts of things to happen. It already regularly caused snow in the Western Alps and Slovenia in recent days. In the coming days, it remains cold and the snowfall weakens due to increasing high pressure. However, it will remain dry by no means everywhere.

Tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday promises to be really brilliant days in the Western Alps with quite a lot of sunshine after days of snowfall. In the southern Alps, from Lombardy to Slovenia, it may actually snow lightly. Particularly in Slovenia, around 10 centimetres could fall again, locally also a bit more.

On Friday and in the night to Sunday, the Northern Alps will actually get some snow showers again, which could still provide reasonable accumulations with additional lifting in the Nordstau areas. Especially since several weather models show this snow persisting until Sunday. Our model also shows this in the snow forecast. I am currently assuming around 20 to maybe 30 centimetres until Sunday morning. That this snowfall will also bring as much snow further west as our forecast indicates today (Wednesday) does not seem to me at the moment. I already expect a big decrease in amounts between East (more) and West Tyrol (less). I expect most in the areas circled below, the northern areas of Salzburg, western Styria (Dachstein), the southeastern tip of Bavaria and eastern Tyrol. The Tauern possibly too, but that depends on whether the snow can also penetrate further inneralpine.

Then Slovenia again?

Just after the weekend, Slovenia and eastern Austria could be next. A low-pressure area over the Adriatic Sea could start bringing quite a bit of snow down into the valleys with a south-easterly flow. Precise developments are still unclear, but we will keep an eye on this one!

Piles of snow in the Pyrenees

Just a resumé of the snowfall in the Western Pyrenees, because it also dumped tremendously here. In many places it was accompanied by stormy winds (gusts of 100 - 120 km/h), but the amounts of snow were impressive. In Gourette, for instance, over half a metre fell last night alone. Locally, over 70 - 80 centimetres have already fallen higher up. Today, the intensity temporarily decreased and the sun even came out for a while, but in the afternoon it already closed again. Indeed, much more snow is coming. From tonight (Wednesday to Thursday) until Friday morning, some 40 to 60 centimetres more will fall in these western areas, locally possibly even more, with a snowline that does rise a bit to some 1,200 - 1,500 metres, especially on Thursday evening, due to the inflow of some milder air.

Read also:

• What is an ensemble forecast?
• What are low- and high pressure areas?
• What is a northstau/nordstau?
• What is a southstau/südstau?
• What is föhn?
• What is the jet stream?