Bergwetter

It's the beginning of spring again! This time in the astronomical sense, meaning that the sun is vertical above the equator today and day and night are the same length everywhere. The weather is sticking to the calendar and ensuring sunny mountain weather and - hopefully - firn fun

It's going to be a turbulent week - the PowderAlert has already announced it. One front chases the next, all bringing precipitation, initially with relatively cool temperatures.

As announced, it will snow several times this week. Now the first dump in the northwest is imminent. And to all those who are wondering why there is only now an alarm: Well, 20cm of snow above 2500m doesn't meet the criteria. Ullr is sending snow from the northwest to the west with strong storm lows and there are always short sunny spells in between. Temperatures go up and down like in westerly weather, but remain more powdery than this weekend.

The interplay of windy, warmer, colder, sunny and wet continues. Embedded in a strong westerly current, new disturbances are constantly reaching the Alps. Small changes in the direction of flow on both sides of the Alps sometimes lead to foehn, then again to accumulating precipitation.

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.

Today's somewhat changeable weather - changeable in the sense of "there are a few clouds" - is only short-lived. Dorit, last week's high, is moving away to the east, but high Erika is already waiting in the wings.

The PowderAlert has already announced that the recent snowfall will be followed by a longer period of high pressure with sunshine everywhere and relatively mild temperatures. Good for touring, bad prospects for all those who want fresh snow.

Normally we are happy about every alarm, but here the future looks rather sad. Will winter soon end again after the great start? More on this in the medium term. And before that, there will be more snow in the north. Anyone who still wants to take a vacation should seriously think about it.

A small high-pressure bridge has moved between a low over Scandinavia and one in the Aegean and is currently providing sunny, high-pressure weather in the Alps. Tomorrow, Thursday, a small disturbance will move through, bringing snow showers to the western Alps and some clouds to the east.

This time we start with a look at the big picture, or at least the northern half of the big picture. The polar vortex has not been swirling nicely around the pole for a while now, but is wobbling around irregularly with several low-pressure centers.

The Alpine region is still under the influence of a high-altitude trough filled with cold, polar air masses, while the Azores High is trying to build up off the European Atlantic coast. Today, Wednesday, a low pressure system will slip from the British Isles towards the Mediterranean and "drip", i.e. leave the main current to remain in the Mediterranean for a while as a genoa low.

...and the occasional bit of north-westerly congestion. That more or less sums up the current outlook. As you can read in the never-ending PowderAlert series, it's still snowing in the northern Alps for the time being.