Inversion

The Alpine region lies between a low in the south and a wide-ranging bridge of high pressure that spans us in the north. We are on the borderline between "cool and mostly sunny" and "cloudy and often wet". The cold easterly flow will remain with us.

The PowderAlert has already announced it and anyone looking out of the window in the Northern Alps will notice it: it's been a long time since rain or even snow instead of sun and high fog! A nice change that we have a cold front from the northwest to thank for.

In the last few days, the WeatherBlog has often heard the question of whether the current weather misery can be blamed on climate change. It's somehow to blame for everything and in the meantime we've often read that it's causing more "extreme" or simply more persistent weather conditions. So what's this all about again?

The dry, very sunny weather will stay with us until Friday. The partly pronounced inversion in the valleys is creating a kind of winter feeling with cold temperatures and visibility limited by high fog (and fine dust), but in the mountains there is no sign of the cold, dark winter - according to hearsay.

The new year begins as the old one ends: lots of sunshine, mild temperatures at high altitudes, cold in the valleys due to inversions and nocturnal radiation into the mostly starry sky. The flow will remain west to southwest and there is no significant precipitation in sight for the time being.

High pressure determines the weather in the Alpine region. A high pressure system is currently arching over Central Europe with a simultaneous low pressure influence in the south. Over the next few days, the high will flatten out and the large-scale flow will become more zonal. If the whole thing were a little further south, we would have "western Alpine weather", but as the frontal zone is quite far to the north, we will remain under high pressure for the time being.

A large-scale weather situation of the "anticyclonic north" type brings sunshine (therefore anticyclonic) with relatively cool temperatures (because of the northerly flow). Good conditions to make the most of the little fresh snow of the last few days with the best touring weather!

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 year 2019 is still young, but already has a lot to offer in terms of snow: one alarm follows the next and winter really seems to have arrived, at least in the north-east of the Alps. The west and especially the south will have to make do with artificial snow and the remnants of the early season snowfalls for the time being.

The Atlantic wakes up at the start of winter and brings snow to the western Alps on Friday. Otherwise: The east is still waiting for the big snow, from the weekend onwards the weather trend will be rather unwintry everywhere again, the fall was unusually warm and there are fewer inversions in Austria.

After the welcome cooling, including snowflakes in the lowlands at the start of the week, the cold air supply is now being turned off again. There is a threat of low gradient, gloomy weather with a tendency towards mild, foehn-like temperatures at high altitudes and inversion torpor in the valleys.

Today, Wednesday, will be very sunny for the most part thanks to the influence of intermediate highs, and any remaining hillside clouds should clear quickly. Thursday will be cloudy with the arrival of a warm front from the west. In the western Alps, it will probably be cloudy from the morning onwards, while it will remain clearer in the east in the morning.