Large uncertainties in the weather models for next week

Despite the expected snow for the north side this weekend, very little happens until the middle of next week. High pressure returns from Monday and provides at least two sunny days. For now, the weather models’ calculations for the second half of next week vary surprisingly: from a snow dump for both the northern and southern Alps to continued mild and dry weather, it’s all still in the weather models.

Long sunny phase is over

The long sunny and dry phase is (temporarily) over for in part of the Alps. A strong low pressure area with a core over the North Sea (see satellite image) is bringing bring more clouds from the northwest. In the northern areas of the Northern Alps, this causes some precipitation and an increase in wind, but it produces very little and, besides, it is still very mild. Further inland Alpine there is more room for clearings.

The snowfall for this weekend - surprise possible?

On Wednesday, I already talked about the expected precipitation with some uncertainties over the weekend. As mentioned, the jet stream is too far north, leaving almost all of the Alps out of the picture and just keeping dry and mild weather. However, developments for the eastern areas in Austria are interesting, but there is still no clear picture about what exactly will happen.

For this, the flow has to be right, so it will be nowcasting whether it will actually happen there. Should everything fall into place, Sunday may even see 20 to 30 centimetres of snow in the northern stau areas such as Krippenstein and Loser. Initially, the snowline is still quite high (around 1,500 metres), but Sunday during the day it could drop below 1,200 metres. In the process, the (north)west wind will make it stormy, especially in the areas at the northern alpine edge. The remaining areas will see considerably less snow. Tyrol, for instance, already remains largely dry and in Salzburgerland a maximum of about 5 to 15 centimetres could fall.

Chaos in the weather models

Then, from the west, the influence of a high-pressure area increases again and the sun gets more and more space. There are interesting developments with possibly even a big dump for the second half of next week, but the weather models are still keeping things very exciting. Large differences from Wednesday onwards mean that we are far from being able to go into detail about these developments. While the American model is full of almost all members going for a cold outbreak, the European model is far from convinced and there are even particularly few ensemble members that seem to be going for a strong cooling with snow. So the Genoa low that is now (for some time) on the GFS model’s charts is not yet certain either. Monday hopefully more clarity on this exciting situation!

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 a retour d’Est?
• What is the jet stream?