ECMWF

The more southerly parts of the Alps up to the main ridge and a little beyond now have a decent base after the extreme southerly dust, while the northern Alps still have to wait. The different conditions can also be seen in the CRs at the moment: In the south and southwest, powder is great, while in northern Salzburger Land a reporter has to make do with ski tours on frozen fields, slightly sugared.

The WeatherBlog has stumbled across some strange conspiracy theories and is calling for reflection and not believing everything on the internet. It's a bit like the supposedly waist-deep snow on Instagram that only reaches as far as the second buckle on your ski boots. What's more, the ECMWF now has a powerful computer and is better at forecasting.

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...?"

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.

Question from Tobi: A meteorologist, who is one of the more forecast-minded types, once told me that the stable weather conditions, i.e. good for a long time or bad for a long time (it's always a question of perspective, of course), have increased significantly. This is also in line with my personal perception, although you can be very wrong. Are there any empirical findings on this or what do you think about the trend?

The WeatherBlog is tired from skiing, so this week just a bit of framing for the PowderAlert

PG-Conditions reporter KarlNickel asks: "I assume (the forecasting uncertainty) is mainly due to the large amount of data and parameters that are difficult to calculate? I would be interested to know ... whether it will be possible to make reliable 7-day forecasts in about 10 years' time."

PG reader Randy-Random obviously has some catching up to do when it comes to polar vortex splits, and a revision lesson at the beginning of the year was always a good idea at school, so we'll confidently leave the fuss about individual snowflakes on individual mountains to our colleague Oracle and look at the bigger picture again.

Winds of hurricane force are when speeds of 64 knots are reached. That is just under 120 km/h or level 12 on the Beaufort scale. Wind forces in Beaufort are specified using phenomenological criteria. Level 11 (hurricane-like storm) prevails, for example, when there is severe damage to forests and houses and you can hardly walk. Level 12 (hurricane) is then a little more severe.