Azorenhoch

The meteorological winter is coming to an end (the skiing winter is still a long way off, of course!) and with it, the permanent high that has dominated the Alpine weather for what feels like half an eternity is slowly coming to an end.

The Alps are caught in a strong westerly flow, which is currently causing very unsettled weather and mild temperatures. There are signs of a cold air advance for the coming weekend, which could bring heavy snowfall down to low altitudes on the northern slopes of the Alps.

The Atlantic wakes up at the start of winter and brings snow to the western Alps on Friday. Otherwise: The east is still waiting for the big snow, from the weekend onwards the weather trend will be rather unwintry everywhere again, the fall was unusually warm and there are fewer inversions in Austria.

After the statistically inclined meteorologists have already thought it was spring since the beginning of the month, the more astronomically oriented calendars are now following suit and have also been proclaiming the new season since yesterday (March 20). Meanwhile, the weather is unimpressed by this and that and remains rather wintry as usual.

At the meteorological end of winter (March 1), it is now fittingly getting warmer again after the exceptionally cold last few days.

A pre-Christmas snow streak in the east at the end of the week is followed by a milder phase over the holidays. Plus: 2017 was pretty warm overall, little ice in the polar regions and continued trouble with the weather on the internet.

Now that our colleague Orakel has already spoken twice, it's high time for the WeatherBlog to dive back into the action. The weather has a lot to offer at the moment, so we'll take a classic look at the current situation and the outlook for the future.

Spring has arrived in the Alps and the high pressure weather will continue until the end of the week. Towards the weekend, it will become much cloudier with precipitation on the northern side of the Alps. We are also looking at Storm Stella, which is currently affecting the US East Coast.

Atlantic lows continue to slide from the northwest towards Central Europe and determine the weather in the Alps. After the heavy foehn event at the weekend (wind peaks of 224 km/h on the Lauberhorn, Switzerland) and accumulated precipitation in the south, there will be almost continuous precipitation in the north this week.

The intermediate high influence of the last few days is coming to an end. A warm front will reach the northern side of the Alps from the west during the course of Wednesday. This will be accompanied by milder temperatures, fresh snow and lots of wind. This week in the WeatherBlog: More details on the outlook for the coming days and the sea effect snow in south-eastern Europe.

Why does only the East get something from the PowderAlert? What happens afterwards? What about the possible weather change at the turn of the year?

After the passage of a warm front today, the current will turn to the southwest. While it will be very mild in the north with a föhn wind, precipitation will set in in the südstau. Further disturbances will follow at the weekend, bringing a lot of precipitation, especially in the south, but with a higher snow line than recently.