Aprilwetter

This year, the weather is once again following the perceived trend of "bathing weather at Christmas, snow at Easter" and is generally "april" for the Easter weekend. Why is it often so unstable in April?

The unsettled weather continues for the time being. After the very warm weekend, temperatures have now dropped back to a level appropriate for the time of year and the April weather is living up to its reputation with a mix of showers, clouds and a few hours of sunshine.

Since last Sunday, a cold snap has had not only the Alps but also large parts of Central Europe firmly in its grip. To the east of a massive, blocking high in the Atlantic, cold air from the polar regions is being directed towards us. Snow showers are causing confusion in the northern German lowlands, in many places there is concern about frost damage to the fruit blossom and in the mountains, everyone who didn't give up on winter in February is going in search of a few more powder turns.

After a few dry, clear days, a change in the weather is on the horizon and fans of thunder and lightning are looking forward to the start of the thunderstorm season. The medium-term outlook is uncertain, but at least there is no threat of midsummer yet. Also: The Alpine Association presents its glacier report for the 2014/15 season.

The WeatherBlog was written a little earlier than usual due to vacation plans and appears here with a time delay, so we tend to deal with less current things. From today's perspective (Monday), the weather is looking increasingly April-like in the near future, with slightly lower temperatures (as would be expected in April) and occasional, sometimes heavier, thundery precipitation. Note: The thunderstorm season is open!

After a week of stable high pressure and temperatures around 20 °C, cooler, changeable north-westerly weather is on the cards for the weekend. However, it is still unclear whether there will be significant snow or just significant wind.

People like to accuse April of not knowing what it wants. In view of the constantly changeable April weather, this seems rather far-fetched to me. I suspect that people generally underestimate the complexity of April's character and that it knows exactly what it doesn't want, namely weeks of cold spells like January or sunshine every morning and a heat storm just in time for afternoon tea like August. April prefers variety, but without too much effort.

Snowy Easter walks, sunny, warm foehn weather immediately followed by more precipitation, in turn followed by clearing and rain: April weather lives up to its name.

Meteorologists, at least those who are interested in weather forecasting, usually have a favorite topic. There are, for example, the foehn fanatics and the high fog lovers. What they all have in common is that they don't like boring weather.