Beaucoup de Neige! Oh la la! So enough of the linguistic clichés; what's happening? It's getting warm and it's starting to snow. In France, 20-40 cm of snow has already fallen in places, and up to 90 cm in certain congested areas, and it's continuing. The problem for everyone who doesn't have direct access to vin rouge and baguettes is that it's getting significantly warmer from the southwest. It will also snow in the west of Switzerland from the Bernese Oberland onwards, but nowhere near as much as in France. It is uncertain how far the snowfall will penetrate into Valais. The most difficult question first: How warm will it be where? Very difficult to answer, because depending on how sheltered you are in Valais or the Aosta Valley, there may still be a cold air reservoir there that will allow snowfall down to below 1000m. This should also be the case on the southern slopes of the Alps from Ticino to the Engadine and in Italy. In the exposed foothills of the Alps in France and Switzerland - i.e. from the Vercors to the Chartreuse, Aravis, Fribourg and Bernese Alps - it will almost certainly rain up to 1800-1900 m, possibly only up to 1600-1700 m. In the Hautes Alpes in France, the whole thing will also rise, but here I see the chance that it will stop at 1200-1400 m due to the massive precipitation within the Alps. Confused? Good! Then you're like me. From Sunday onwards, it should level off again at 1000 m everywhere and the rain scars in the lower-lying places can be covered with fresh powder.
Where is how much coming from? As the weather situation repeats itself in different waves and is also quite widespread, I'm issuing this alert with an expiry date of Tuesday. It will snow more or less continuously in the west. And as it will turn back to the WNW from time to time, Switzerland west of central Switzerland will also get some. The amounts here should be between 50 and 90 cm, but I would say that negative surprises in the 10-20 cm range - depending on the SW Föhn sensitivity - can also happen. In France, from the Mont Blanc area down to the Maritime Alps, there should be 70-100 cm across the board, and I wouldn't rule out 150 cm in the biggest potholes. However, contrary to the PowderGuide and other snow models, I wouldn't expect this to be on Mont Blanc but somewhere in the Hautes Alpes or Isere departments. Together with what has already fallen since yesterday, we would then break through the 2m sound barrier there. Did I mention that it's going to be pretty windy? No? But it will be. So the whole thing should be taken with a pinch of salt. So make your way through the annoying flash ad from Meteofrance.fr to the LLB francaise and READ IT, or have it translated by the nice Erasmus student in the neighboring flat share ;) And everyone else? And especially Austria? Yes, there are fronts moving through everywhere and it snows a cosmetic 10-30 cm here and there (maybe 40 cm somewhere in the endless expanses of Italy), but as you know, that doesn't call for an alarm. SW/W/WNW is more baguette time than whipped cream time. In the medium term, I'll have to urge you to do your duty again, because you seem to have annoyed Ullr. In fact, warm and humid southwest or hot and dry southwest are all things that can happen. The general weather situation towards Christmas looks anything but deep winter. We might get out of it with a black eye, but you'll have to sacrifice more again! So have fun with the powder masses if you're French Allemagnephiles reading along, otherwise good luck finding visibility and reasonably good snow in the rest of the Alps. Powder to the people, Your Oracle P.S. A lot of text, a lot of honor!
