PowderAlert No. 17 2015 | West jam ahead!

Hey there, powder pirates. Ullr has promised loot and now the dump is appearing in the telescopes. After the rain is before the snow. It has already started to snow, or rather to rain below 1600 to 2000 m, and will continue to snow until Tuesday night or early Tuesday morning, with the snow line dropping and it will snow again at usable altitudes. The entire northern slope of the Alps will see usable amounts with a westerly flow, but the largest amounts will come from the lower Valais to the French Hautes Alpes. Tonight (1.3.15), the snow line will slowly drop to around 1000 m in the west by tomorrow morning and the precipitation will become more intense, so most of it should fall as powder if we weren't served up with a hurricane, as is so often the case with intense systems from the west. And there we have the problem of the powder pirates: because Ullr presents the powder treasure galleon of fresh snow with unsightly side effects.

1. First, everything below 2000 m got wet and unstable.

2. Then comes a lot of fresh snow, which is blown everywhere

3. And last but not least, the whole thing comes on a weak foundation in some regions.

Where it is wet, the whole thing could become more stable due to the cooling in the trees, but looking above the tree line on Tuesday after the snowfall will be very dangerous. Tomorrow, Monday, you can safely spend in the trees and watch the snow cover and the danger grow. Now to the amounts: Throughout the northern Alpine arc, the models also see alarm-worthy amounts of 30 to 50 cm outside the core zones from France to Austria's deep east, whereby you can stay at the upper edge in western congestion holes such as the Arlberg and otherwise at the lower edge. The models do make a focus from Tyrol to the Salzkammergut, but I don't believe in the inflow, as the models always overestimate large precipitation fields. I take the other real core in the models from France to the Valais seriously, as the accumulation is hitting hard here and could probably reach 50 to 70 cm or a little more in the west by Tuesday. Big surprises are unlikely as the system is large and such things tend to be overestimated. There may even be downward outliers here and there. The flow is strong, so it can reach far into the Valais and up to the main ridge of the western accumulation areas without losing too much snow power.

In the medium term, more or less humid air masses will be brought towards the Alps until Friday, so there could even be an alarm from Wednesday. From the weekend onwards, it looks rather bleak for powder fans, so I advise weekend warriors to spend this coming weekend in the snow. Everyone else should look for a place in the western north with trees this week and be careful. Powder to the people!Your Oracle