Alpen

About 20 years ago, as a young boy, I stood on the Aiguille du Midi in France for the first time with my parents. Without any effort, I climbed to an altitude of 3842m to stand like an astronaut in the face of a rugged, high alpine landscape. Impressed then as I am now, I ask myself whether it is essential for people to be able to reach otherwise almost inaccessible places so easily.

A southerly foehn will end the cold, snowy winter weather phase in the northern Alps for the time being. The controlling low lies over the British Isles and, as is so often the case, warm air from the southwest will be brought to the Alpine arc. In the north, the next few days will be characterized by Föhn winds, in the south it will be cloudy with - depending on the altitude - liquid or solid accumulated precipitation.

"Respect your boundaries", "Experience the Tyrolean mountain world together", "Naturally on tour", "Your recreational area - my habitat" are all slogans and campaigns that remind us that we are out in nature, in the forest and on the mountain in the habitat of our native wild animals, in their "home" so to speak, and that we are guests there.

After the labyrinthine social distancing lift queuing system had brought us together by chance and we had taken our seats as far apart from each other as possible in the four-seater chair, my lift colleague mumbled through his FFP2 mask: "A temperature like in winter!"

Wild, untouched nature far away from human civilization: in our ideal image, the Alps are still this deserted space today. But why do we long so much for the so-called wilderness and when did the Alps become a cultural area?

There has still been little change to the large-scale constellation of high and low pressure centers. The Atlantic current is blocked by a strong high and its continental counterpart is located over Russia. The low-pressure complex that has been keeping us busy in the Alps for some time is neither advancing nor can it be replaced by new lows from the west.

Good news for the Northern Alps! The Christmas thaw is still raging at the moment, but from Thursday evening it will get colder from the north with snow down to low altitudes. Presumably, a Christmas alarm will go out in the northern congested areas. We are eagerly awaiting a message from the oracle!

There isn't (much) snow in the north yet, it's warm and there are thin layers of snow everywhere. At least Ullr has seen sense and wants to make the whole thing at least visually appealing on the festive days.

The more southerly parts of the Alps up to the main ridge and a little beyond now have a decent base after the extreme southerly dust, while the northern Alps still have to wait. The different conditions can also be seen in the CRs at the moment: In the south and southwest, powder is great, while in northern Salzburger Land a reporter has to make do with ski tours on frozen fields, slightly sugared.

At some point, the prolonged late fall will turn into an early winter with short days and, this year, a light layer at higher altitudes. At some point, the bikes and climbing gear can be swapped for the skis from the summer camps. And then, it's time for the PowdeAalarm and the snow height game! For the fifth time in a row! And there are some great prizes again, more on that below.

In line with the still not at all wintry weather situation, the weather services of Germany, Austria and Switzerland have stated in a joint press release that winters are becoming milder and that there is less and less snow, especially at low altitudes. Rising temperatures mean that proportionately more winter precipitation is falling than rain.

Greetings, dear WeatherBlog readers! We are starting the season, despite high pressure and the corona crisis, because: Weather always works. And at some point, the weather will change again and so will the lockdown situation. And then you want to be well prepared! The other PowderGuide weather services (fresh snow forecast, PowderMap) will be switched on when it looks a bit more wintry.