Lea Hartl

A strong westerly to north-westerly flow will determine the Christmas weather in the Alpine region. This current brought a warm front yesterday (Tuesday), followed by a cold front today. While the lowlands and lower valleys will be quite wet, considerable amounts of fresh snow will fall at higher altitudes.

My grandmother, who learned to drive in the 1950s, still raves about the chic gloves that people wore when driving back then - white leather gloves on the leather steering wheel, that was simply stylish, apparently.

The current southerly foehn conditions are almost creating a summer feeling, especially in western Austria and parts of Switzerland: in Feldkirch (Vorarlberg), 20°C were measured at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, and temperatures were also close to the 20° mark at some other stations on Tuesday morning.

A strong westerly flow will bring fronts and intermediate highs in rapid alternation. For the most part, it will remain too warm for the lowlands, but there will be more snow at higher altitudes. The western Alps are favored, in the east there will only be grazing snow.

Mountain glaciers and the seasonal snow cover play an important role in the local and regional water balance. When they change, the hydrological conditions also change - not only in the direct catchment areas, but possibly also far downstream. What exactly does this mean and what are the consequences, apart from "it's bad for the ski resorts" and "it looks stupid"?

High pressure determines the weather in the Alpine region. A high pressure system is currently arching over Central Europe with a simultaneous low pressure influence in the south. Over the next few days, the high will flatten out and the large-scale flow will become more zonal. If the whole thing were a little further south, we would have "western Alpine weather", but as the frontal zone is quite far to the north, we will remain under high pressure for the time being.

While the southern side of the Alps can already boast a more than decent base, the north is still struggling for the most part, especially at lower altitudes. It has recently been warm on both sides of the main ridge - in the south with rain up to high altitudes, in the north with snow-eating Föhn winds and in the center with gale-force winds. A change in the general weather situation is now bringing change.

After our colleague Orakel has already reported four times, it's high time for the WeatherBlog to return from its summer slumber. We are starting the season with a classic overview of the very interesting general weather situation:

Every two years, the International Snow Science Workshop (ISSW) brings together scientists and practitioners from a wide range of different, but always snow-related, subject areas. New findings and research results are presented in various thematic blocks - so-called sessions. We break the whole thing down into more or less digestible morsels and summarize the sessions of the ISSW2018 for you every two weeks.

With yesterday's cold front, winter has returned, at least at higher altitudes, and the Sahara-dusty Föhn period has come to an end. Today's Saturday will start relatively friendly but cool, at least in the east, and the next front will approach from the northwest towards the evening, bringing the next wave of precipitation on Sunday night.

Since last season, Black Diamond has had two re-labelled Pieps avalanche transceivers in its range: the Guide BT and the Reckon BT. The BD Guide BT corresponds to the Pieps Pro BT, the BD Reckon BT to the Pieps Powder BT. Guide/Pro and Reckon/Powder are the successors to the Pieps DSP Pro and Pieps DSP Sport respectively, i.e. the "top model" in the line-up (Guide/Pro) and the slightly slimmed-down, cheaper version (Reckon/Powder/Sport). The BD devices differ from the Pieps models only in colour.

Spring is progressing rapidly, but has to pause for breath: Cool air of polar origin is reaching the Alps from the north-east and it is getting fresh again with snowfall limits in some of the higher valleys. Maybe it's better to wait a few more days with the summer tires!