Lea Hartl

The summery weather will reach its peak today, Wednesday. From tomorrow, it will become more unstable and temperatures will drop slightly. The development over the Easter period could be interesting: It is likely to become significantly cooler again, especially in the east of the Alpine region. Interesting options in the medium term!

The birds are chirping, the flowers are sprouting, the daily rhythm is stumbling over the time change and you can dry your sweaty inner shoes on the balcony: spring is here. Time for morning firn tours, high summits, sunburn and stubborn skins!

Last week's heavy northerly thaw is long gone, but it was still quite wintry in the northern Alps until after last weekend. In the west, the sun came through a little earlier, while in the east it was rather cloudy up to and including Monday, with snow showers falling again and again, even at low altitudes. Since yesterday, however, there has definitely been a spring feeling everywhere with lots of sunshine and significantly higher temperatures.

Nothing lasts forever and snow certainly doesn't, so enjoy it while it lasts! The northern thaw has done a great job and covered the northern slopes of the Alps in a deep wintery spring coat. It will stay cool and snow intermittently until the end of the week, and high pressure is expected to take over again from Sunday.

The weather is set to be changeable over the next few days, with not-so-bad snow options, especially from next week. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the crystal ball is not mistaken and maintains its current vision. Long-term visions for the future are unfortunately much less snowy, reports the ZAMG.

The last issue of this column dealt with the so-called planetary boundaries, which show how much change the system can tolerate in various areas and at what point it becomes critical. It is not only in the context of planetary boundaries that the discourse on environmental change is increasingly focusing on tipping points. What is behind the buzzword?

Last week, the WeatherBlog received the following user question: "How are weather patterns and global warming connected? Does the frequency of warm weather increase in times of global warming? Or has the frequency of different weather conditions remained the same, but they have all become warmer?"

The current omega situation will continue to bring us warm temperatures and sunshine. On Friday, there is a chance of change in the form of more clouds and perhaps even some (light) precipitation in the north, then mostly sunny but slightly cooler again at the weekend. There is currently no sign of winter.

Easy come, easy go: The cold spell is over and will be replaced by Atlantic disturbances, which will initially bring some precipitation before sunshine and very warm temperatures prevail at the weekend.

The Wildspitze model is a classic in the gloves line-up from PowderGuide partner Zanier. The gloves were developed in collaboration with the Austrian Mountain Rescue Service and offer a good compromise between a feeling of movement and warmth.

After the interesting contrast of Sahara feeling in the Alps and snow chaos in the northern German lowlands, the cold is now making its way south. The coming weekend will be very cold with lots of sunshine. There will still be a little snow here and there today and tomorrow, but the coming cold phase will be mostly dry.

Most of the avalanche transceiver and airbag manufacturers were not represented at the virtual ISPO. Ortovox presented a talking avalanche transceiver at the same time as but not "at" ISPO. ABS announced a new release mechanism for airbags for 21/22 and Black Diamond presented an avalanche transceiver similar to the Pieps Micro in Black Diamond colors. There was little else new to report in this area of equipment.