Lars Oelmann

I've been using the Salomon Guardian for over a season now and it's time to draw a conclusion. From Andermatt to Alaska and from hardpack to bottomless powder, the binding has had to put up with a lot and I want to report on it...

After weeks of television weather forecasters rejoicing and finding warm temperatures 10 degrees above average and sunshine "totally great", the heat is finally over and we are rejoicing because Ullr is not leaving the field to summer without a sound, but is at least giving it a serious fight back.

After it has been rather quiet in the Alarmecke recently with several small snowfalls and steeper things to tackle in the touring terrain, the powder pirates are getting excited again, as there is südstau and new opportunities to have some lazy fun in the powder from the lift. Once again. In the north, we can probably kiss the season goodbye when we look at the forecast warmth for next week.

First of all, the following: It's not snowing in the south for once, but in the west and it won't start snowing again in the south until Sunday afternoon.

The southern winter won't be really boring for Ullr, but he's turning the screws so that snow is also coming to the north and especially the west.

Didn't I say in the last alert that it would stop snowing on Monday? I was just on the Ullrphone and he said: Think again, dear! The new alert is in effect until midweek, as Ullr apparently has a plan to break seven-day snowfall records (it has already literally "pulverized" the 48-hour ones in places with 50- to 100-year events in the southeast). Then it's on to the next alert.

You won't hear it from me often, but at the moment it would be disrespectful to the people who are cowering in their basements and fearing for their lives and I actually see it this way: Ullr has an understanding and it will finally stop snowing soon. Sunday evening will be the end of the doomsday crowds.

Ullr has also taken this, admittedly slightly modified, wisdom from the IT industry to heart and, after a rather half-hearted Nordstau interlude, is now giving us another Südstau that is really something.

There is fresh snow in the north. After all. Unfortunately, the whole thing has been canceled out in the last two days, but there should still be enough for an alert in the northwestern Alpine arc by Monday evening. The snow line fits everywhere. Only the amounts are not at all euphoria-inducing.

I'm writing live from the südstau and can tell you that it's really powdering. Unfortunately, the snow is actually quite wet below 1700m as the zero degree line rises. But what do you care about yesterday's snow, you're in this section because of the snow of tomorrow. It's snowing. As always in the south. Where exactly? Further down.

When you're on a roll, why stop, thinks Ullr and sends several dumps from the southwest towards the Alps. What does that mean? It snows again exactly where there is already a lot of snow and the north gets nothing or at least virtually nothing in the west of Switzerland. The first wave starts tonight (Thursday) and ends Friday night. The second wave starts on Saturday afternoon and lasts until Tuesday.

Counter-current system? What is that? Without poaching too much into WeatherBlog territory, I'll say this: the countercurrent system is Ullr's way of bringing his faithful powder in exciting quantities without much wind (at least in the center) by letting two air masses make love over the Alps.