Azorenhoch

The meteorological winter (December, January, February) has been over since Monday. In Austria, it went down in the statistics as the second warmest winter in recorded history at 2.7° above the long-term average, and in Germany it was also 3.4° warmer than the average. In Austria, only 2006/07 was warmer, 2013/14 was just as warm. This means that five of the 10 warmest winters in the 250-year measurement history have occurred in the last 10 years. Nevertheless, and because the weather is known to not always stick to the calendar, it was, is and will be relatively wintry, at least in the mountains. We take a closer look at this below.

Last weekend was interesting in terms of weather and regrettable in terms of skiing. After heavy rain during the night, temperatures of around 20 degrees were measured in many places during the day on Sunday. The leader in Austria was Pottschach (Lower Austria) with 23.2° - a new national record for February. What was going on?

Low pressure system Ruzica disturbed the carnival revelers in the German carnival strongholds on Rose Monday. Low Susanna then put the finishing touches to the whole thing last night. Together with a strong föhn wind, the carnival in the Alps was also blown away by the wind.

The weather in Central Europe is currently divided into two parts. A sharp air mass boundary separates the north and east from the much milder south and west. The differences are particularly evident in Germany, where, for example, temperature differences of up to 20° were measured on Monday. In Werl (NRW), on the warm side, the daily maximum temperature was 5.5°C, while in Diepholz, 120 km away on the cold side, it was only -4.7°C. The Alps are on the warm side of the air mass boundary in a humid westerly current.

As explained by our colleague Orakel, a north-westerly current will bring a supply of snow to the NW congestion areas, which are already in a better position. In the south, winter is still a long time coming and there is a threat of spring on the horizon at the meteorological start of winter.

We are currently under the influence of a Mediterranean low whose frontal southerly flow is causing foehn winds in the northern Alps. The low is now slowly ending its rather long stay over the Iberian Peninsula and moving eastwards. The Föhn should be over here by Thursday and the unusually rainy days in the Sahara(!) will also come to an end. The precipitation already present on the southern slopes of the Alps will spread to the north, where it will be supported by a cold front from the NW.

Just in time for the meteorological start of spring, the weather is changing and the wintry weather of the last few days is being replaced by increasing high pressure.

January may have felt relatively wintry, but the statistics have no feelings. February, on the other hand, is currently spring-like in the mountains, while the lowlands are often bobbing along under a blanket of inversion-induced fog.

The WeatherBlog apologizes for the late appearance this week, but our colleague Orakel has everything under control as usual. As he has already vaguely announced, there is a very high probability of extremely interesting weather next week.

While our colleague Orakel oracles and discusses the exciting future, this week's WeatherBlog deals with the boring past, which has recently been characterized by hurricanes, rain and cancelled freeride and Alpine World Cup events.

Over the past few days, the weather in the Alpine region has been dominated by a strong westerly current produced by a low over northern Europe and a high in the south. The high in the south was strong enough to steer most of the disturbances north of the Alps. It was warm and sunny in Austria and Bavaria, while it poured down in northern Germany, which is at least a little less summery.

The end of the fall in Austria was the warmest on record. In September it was on average 0.7°C warmer than the long-term average, in October 2.2°C, and November is likely to be even warmer with an expected 3.8°C above average. If December is not exceptionally cold, it can be assumed that 2014 will also set a new temperature record for the year as a whole.