Lea Hartl

2012 not only ended on a warm note, but was also warmer than average for the year. Over the next few days, the east can look forward to northern congestion before high pressure dominates the weather throughout the Alpine region.

At the end of the week, a cold front brings brief cooling with fresh snow. Possible change in the general weather situation next year.

The current weather situation offers large east/west and cold/warm contrasts and remains difficult to predict. A sudden warming of the stratosphere could determine the further course of winter.

The dreamy winter weather in the north is coming to an end. A westerly situation brings milder air and snow in the west and south.

The WeatherBlog is currently located in an area of the world, somewhere between so-called Styria and so-called Carinthia, where there is only sometimes and even then only shaky, minute-by-minute free Internet. As the weather forecast by looking out of the window only works to a limited extent, we leave the current events, if they are relevant in terms of powder, to our colleague the Oracle.

On the occasion of the fresh snowfall that Storm Heike is bringing to large parts of the Alps, we take a look at a few subtleties of the precipitation forecast.

The WeatherBlog is back from its summer break and vacation far away to catch up on the weather of the last few weeks and the current conditions.

A brilliant April is coming to an end. Snow down to the valleys and cold, wet, zero-visibility powdery weather are over for now: because midsummer is looming this weekend!

People like to accuse April of not knowing what it wants. In view of the constantly changeable April weather, this seems rather far-fetched to me. I suspect that people generally underestimate the complexity of April's character and that it knows exactly what it doesn't want, namely weeks of cold spells like January or sunshine every morning and a heat storm just in time for afternoon tea like August. April prefers variety, but without too much effort.

Snowy Easter walks, sunny, warm foehn weather immediately followed by more precipitation, in turn followed by clearing and rain: April weather lives up to its name.

City beautification trees lining cycle paths are slowly beginning to blossom and you increasingly cycle through clouds of sweetly scented flowers. In public parks, motivated people fall off their slacklines at every corner, albeit sometimes into dog piles that have only recently emerged from under the snow. More and more often, you hear the words of those who have come to terms with winter: "You really can't complain this winter."

Spring can easily be mistaken for summer at the moment, especially on sweaty ski tours in black Gore-Tex clothing and merino wool underwear, which you only don't tear off and throw into the nearest crevasse because of certain social norms.