No sooner have I hung my snorkel from the Dumpicane© on the wall than the next alarm goes off! After the Dumpicane© put even my rather optimistic estimates in their place and delivered over 150 cm of snow (together with that from the two days before, the SLF states up to 2 m!), Santa Dump is now at the door and wants to open his northern bag. Praise Ullr! (Sorry to the southern side of the Alps, you'll have to go on suffering.)
So at the beginning it looks like snow almost all the way down and the line should then slowly rise to 1000-1200 m by Thursday. The further east and the more inner-Alpine it is, the longer it will stay low. The center should extend from the Bernese Oberland to the Arlberg with subsequent zones to the Dachstein east and Chamonix to the west, where there should still be relevant amounts of freeride in the northern congestion. However, these zones are not yet certain. So don't be surprised if you suddenly find yourself in the core and get more.
Now to the exciting things: the volumes. This is where the modeling and forecasting world is divided and I'll stay conservative like the FAZ. There should be 35-60 cm in the core area. With upward uncertainties. In the other northern congestion areas it should still be 20-40 cm. With uncertainties to the top and whether the core will come to rest differently. The south and France south of the Isere will get less. Logical. we have northern congestion, don't we? ;)
Update and new snow amounts significantly corrected upwards!
Apparently, the models, the weather services and I have completely underestimated the situation and so here is the update: The amounts I specified with a safety margin have already been reached across the board and the forecast for tomorrow (Thursday 22.12.2011) has been INCREASED.
So 60-100 cm have already fallen in the core area and 30-60 cm have also fallen in the range areas. Nothing changes in the areas, I just have to adjust the quantities. So the zones remain as described.
From Tuesday to Friday, I now expect the following widespread amounts: peripheral areas of the congestion, as described in alert 8, 60-100 cm, core zone 100-150 cm and occasionally up to 200 cm as a 72-hour total.
There will be much less fresh snow to the south.
Will the dry warming come? More on that on Thursday. Or rather: If there is no alarm, then the warming will come. I won't write to you if it doesn't turn out well.
Powder to the people!
Text: Lars "Mr. PowderAlert" Oelmann