Bergwetter

The good news first: there's enough for an alert until Sunday. But it will be very warm after the snowfall and the limit will also rise during the snowfall, so you'll have to get up high on Sunday if you want to find powder in the northern Alps.

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.

Just a few days ago, the Alps were still in a mild, westerly flow. There was precipitation, but unfortunately not in the right state of aggregation for the most part. What has changed?

The snow from the last alarm came and went. The waxing and waning of Alert 7 is over and the rain slurry is now freezing to the new base, where it hasn't been washed away. And it's going to get a surprisingly nice pack of snow by Friday.

As happy as you are to have beer, you just don't enjoy stale beer. It's the same with this alarm. It may be snowing, but it quickly gets so warm that you can't enjoy it.

The WeatherBlog occasionally reads in The New Yorker magazine, which is usually as great as it is sometimes lengthy, and has found an interesting article there. It's about literary weather: the weather as meaningful plot background, stylistic device, novel character. Before weather forecasts were known, the weather was logically a direct manifestation of divine anger or pleasure. Where else could it come from? From the Greek legends of the gods to the Old Testament, the weather is angrily tossed around with thunder, lightning, wind, waves and the odd plague of locusts. Classics by Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters would probably only be half as thick if the London fog and stormy weather of English upland moors had been given less of a supporting role.

At the moment, some people are probably wondering about the weather, which doesn't seem to fit in with the dream of a White Christmas. For example, the WeatherBlog received the following question: "Hi, can you explain when this warm and sunny bastard weather will disappear? And what does it have to do with climate change if it gets 2 degrees warmer overall? Why is it not -2 degrees in December instead of -5 degrees as it used to be, but +15 degrees for weeks on end? What does global warming have to do with the fact that in recent years we have often had a tendency towards a persistent mild south-westerly flow...?"

Although the current weather, like the current snow conditions, hardly suggests it: in just a few weeks it will be that time again. Christmas is just around the corner again and it's probably not only large parts of the PowderGuide editorial team that are looking for Christmas presents. Reason enough for us to offer our readers a little inspiration!

In all probability, 2015 will be the warmest year on record. This has been on the cards for a long time and everyone has probably noticed by now. Recently, the WMO issued another press release explaining this once again. It also mentioned that 2011-2015 was the warmest five-year period on record.

It has already started to snow and the new alarm has to come, you think? Absolutely right, but you won't miss anything today, because this alert is for Thursday / Friday, as the alert amounts won't fall until tomorrow.

The WeatherBlog is currently receiving a lot of questions about El Niño, which is this year - or was it La Niña? What is all this again and what does it mean for the Alps? Haven't we covered this topic before? Yes, we have. To start with: there is still no clear, statistically definitive correlation between El Niño and the Alpine winter that anyone can agree on.

There's no end to late summer. At the weekend, a weak cold front will touch the northern Alps and bring some cooling, perhaps even a little snow for the optics. Next week, however, the tough November high will return and it will be business as usual for the time being. A onset of winter in the desired sense is not in sight (not even at the weekend).