Bergwetter

Winter weather is coming to life—and with it, the WeatherBlog. After a record-breaking summer in terms of heat and water shortages across much of Europe, the situation has unfortunately not improved this fall. Whether that will change this winter remains to be seen. Right now, though, it certainly looks that way—it already snowed last night, and it looks like we’ll get quite a bit more by the weekend. So it’s high time to wake the WeatherBlog from its summer slumber and take a look at what’s happening on the weather front.

35 countries, 35 highest peaks, and a journey from Alaska to Patagonia. The young Swiss adventurer Tobias Renggli has set his sights on quite a challenge. The first leg of his journey took him by bike from the far north to the base of Denali. What does PowderGuide have to do with this? We’ll introduce you to the project and explain how a conversation at the EOFT led to a collaboration that took us all the way to the glaciers of Alaska.

The winter of 2025/26 challenged us with difficult snow conditions, but at PowderGuide, things were moving full speed ahead. With the new PG Map, more editorial content and an increasingly international focus, the platform took some big steps forward. At the same time, our community continued to grow, with ConditionsReports, feedback and plenty of interaction once again showing what PowderGuide is all about. Our Season Report looks back at the key developments, highlights and numbers from the past winter.

In spring of 2026 PowderGuide partnered up with endurance athlete Tobias Renggli, who, together with our friend and mountain goat Heli Hoffmann and polar guide Laetitia Lam, intended to scale, as the first of many mountains in America, Denali (6190 m.a.s.l.) in Alaska, the tallest of the USA, by bike, ski and foot. This is the story about how I became their expedition's meteorologist and how they summited despite non-ideal weather conditions.

April is known for the small battles between Ullr and Ostara - winter versus spring, cold versus mild, snow versus sun. At the beginning of the week, Ullr tried once again to make up ground. But it wasn't too successful: the PowderAlert station reported a decent 33cm, but the advance was limited to the higher elevations. Ostara is increasingly asserting itself in the valleys - but spring is holding out.

The warmth came to stay? In the short term, some snow is still falling in the south, but the snow line is too high and it's too short to justify a real PowderAlert.

The Easter weather had it all - the onset of winter in Holy Week was promptly followed by the first day of summer (>25°C) on Easter Sunday. The spring weather is here to stay for the time being, albeit with slightly more "normal" temperatures. From the weekend onwards, both the uncertainties and the chances of precipitation will increase again.

As WeatherBlog 21 already indicated, and as two PowderAlerts within the last week as well as many highly starry ConditionsReports prove, early spring has once again covered the north side of the Alps in white gold. Although the gold price has fallen considerably since mid-March. We dare to doubt whether there is a negative correlation here. What these two northern storms certainly correlate with, however, is the weakening of the jet stream - more on this in the special topic.

Our colleague Orakel has the details, but we also notice: Nordstau! For what feels like the first time this winter! At least east of the Arlberg, the base was and is poor to miserable for the end of March (!), but we are still happy about the late powder gifts. Also: Global weirding on the other side of the Atlantic.

Nordstau, lovely creature full of mystical power i love thee and thy fluffy shower! The oracle, full of iambs and troches, longs for you and for snow on front porches.

The last Mediterranean cyclone has once again delivered a wild mix of powder and concrete snow to large parts of the Alps. The weather will remain varied and snowfall is still to be expected. And when the powder season slowly draws to a close, the high altitude season begins. The current high pressure and increasingly longer days are inviting the first high-altitude tours.

The tough omega situation is wobbling and the warm, sunny weather is coming to an end for the time being towards the weekend. With cold air from the north and the chance of low pressure developing in the Mediterranean, it could even get quite wintry again, but the details are still unclear. In any case, it will become increasingly unstable from today and the dry, reliable firn phase will be over for the time being.