Just in time for the first significant snowfall of the still young 2011/2012 winter season, the PowderGuide team presents a new editorial addition and completes the PG weather service: The PowderAlert appears before significant new snowfall and forecasts when, where and how the snow will fall and where you have the best chance of good snow. The experienced amateur meteorologist and powder snow enthusiast Lars Oelmann presents the first PowderAlert for the period from October 8, 2011.
But that's over now!
After the summer turned out to be as bad for the glaciers as 2003 in places thanks to the warm and, above all, far too dry spring, the first cold breeze with fresh snow up to 1000 m is now coming.
Since the whole thing will be limited to the northern Alps, however, and there is hardly anything left of the mid-September snowfall further south anyway, this should allow the first snow cover of the winter to form, at least in the north.
The still very high ground temperature will be problematic: In the last two weeks, the 0° isotherm (zero degree limit) was high up at around 4000 m in midsummer!
Because if, and it looks like it will, the whole thing above 2300-2500 m (northern slopes) doesn't thaw completely, there may be problems with snow cover build-up later in winter.
I won't write much about the amounts now, because if you want to search for crevasses on completely bare glaciers in knee-deep snow with poor visibility: have fun.
In general, the whole thing will come down on the northern Alpine arc from Chamonix to the Dachstein. It tends to be in classic north-west accumulations. The amounts of the first cold wave until Saturday should not be far above 30-40 cm, as the models tend to overestimate such large weather changes.
However, as the accumulation situation will remain and the change between warm and cold fronts will guarantee a new supply of moisture until Tuesday, there should be around 1 m (+/-20 cm) above 2200 to 2400 m. In the meantime, however, a warm front will lead to a rise in the snow line to 2000 m on Monday before it drops again with the next cold front on Tuesday night.
But before everyone freaks out completely because there was no real north(west) congestion last year and on the s!cken™ Pow, respectively The strongly fluctuating snow line and the warm ground will mean that it is highly unlikely that the snow cover will reach a thickness of one meter on Tuesday, even above 2500 m.
In the medium term, things are looking lively in the weather kitchen
This means that there may be a new report next week.
At least. Something is happening.
Powder to the People!
Text: Lars Oelmann