Föhn

The dreamy winter weather in the north is coming to an end. A westerly situation brings milder air and snow in the west and south.

The WeatherBlog is back from its summer break and vacation far away to catch up on the weather of the last few weeks and the current conditions.

A brilliant April is coming to an end. Snow down to the valleys and cold, wet, zero-visibility powdery weather are over for now: because midsummer is looming this weekend!

People like to accuse April of not knowing what it wants. In view of the constantly changeable April weather, this seems rather far-fetched to me. I suspect that people generally underestimate the complexity of April's character and that it knows exactly what it doesn't want, namely weeks of cold spells like January or sunshine every morning and a heat storm just in time for afternoon tea like August. April prefers variety, but without too much effort.

Snowy Easter walks, sunny, warm foehn weather immediately followed by more precipitation, in turn followed by clearing and rain: April weather lives up to its name.

It's getting dark quite early again, columns of cars are rolling up the valleys, the season ticket sales are over in many places, sports stores are advertising the latest developments in carving, Facebook contacts are posting smileys and snowflakes – the evidence points to the approach of winter. The WeatherBlog has spent the summer break watching TV and knows that on CSI, at least 2 perpetrators are convicted every week with circumstantial evidence. So it's high time to get to work and track down winter.

The past few days in the northern Alps have been characterized by sunshine and foehn winds. Low pressure system Yvan slowly moved from the Iberian Peninsula to the Mediterranean and provided the southerly flow that brought us gale-force gusts last weekend. Wind speeds of 140 km/h were measured on the Patscherkofel on Saturday (12.3), 115 km/h on the Zugspitze and an impressive 104 km/h in Innsbruck city center (station at the university).

Life without the internet is inevitably relaxed. If the only weather forecast option is a more or less attractive lady on TV who moves clouds and suns around on a vague map outline and comments on the whole thing in a foreign language, then you just get up in the morning and look out of the window.

After a fantastic powder day on Thursday last week (16.12.), we had slightly frozen noses and a little toe that didn't really want to thaw out. On Friday, a chairlift acquaintance complained bitterly about the weather in general and the snow in particular, saying it couldn't be that it had been snowing for three weeks and the wife at home in Germany had to clear the snow again. In fact, this is already the second ski vacation where the sun never shines and it is also far too cold and in future he would stay at home?

Last weekend was probably an absolute early winter highlight for many freeriders. Saturday (4.12.) was sunny and cold across the board – and a bit of fresh snow on a soft base made for excellent conditions. At around 2000 m near Innsbruck, it was minus 16° C on Saturday and even during the extra speedy ascent, fingers and toes didn't really want to thaw out. The descent was of course more than worth the effort, which is why we were back in the same area on Sunday. But in completely different conditions: A few layers of clothing already fell off during the first short ascent in the morning. The thermometer confirmed our sweating, at -4° it was a whole 12° warmer in the same place than the day before.

The season is still young, but a lot has already happened in terms of weather and, above all, snow in the not-yet-quite-winter. Motivated powder fans opened many a valley run at the end of October after a friendly combination of low pressure areas north and south of the Alps left up to half a meter of fresh snow in places. Subsequently, a low pressure system in Italy caused südstau and a slowly growing base on the main ridge, while in the north almost everything was swallowed up again by the voracious Föhn.

During a long break in the lee, the sun's rays are already spring-like warm on our skin – after all, we are not far from the Aegean in south-eastern Europe. After the sweat-inducing ascent, past Muratov (2669 m) and over the small Hovinati summit, the foehn up here in the Vihren Scharte gives you quite a good airing. Is bad weather coming?