Italientief

Most people have already seen it: The maps are getting more colorful, the crowds more massive, the ski internet is going crazy. It's southern traffic jam time.

The Mediterranean lows that have been so frequent in recent winters have been rare so far this season. Low pressure system Virginie ends the west/northwest trend, at least in the (very) short term, and the south-east can be happy.

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?

Once upon a time, a high pressure bridge over Central Europe provided stable mountain weather for days on end. Unfortunately, the wind didn't really want to play along, so the avalanche situation remained tense in many places, and annoyingly on a sunny weekend with fresh snow ...

Amazing Snowfalls in the Piemonte in Italy, with about 1,5 -2 meters of "Freshies" within only 4 days (!) made the competition, just about 12 hrs after the last snowflakes came down, with stunning blue skys absolutely "perfecto"!!! The Artesina Freeride Festival 2015 went down on Sunday, February 8th and it was a blast for our rider-reporter Nico Göz. Nico decided to write the report in English so that the organizers and the other riders could understand a bit of it.

Over the past few days, the weather in the Alpine region has been dominated by a strong westerly current produced by a low over northern Europe and a high in the south. The high in the south was strong enough to steer most of the disturbances north of the Alps. It was warm and sunny in Austria and Bavaria, while it poured down in northern Germany, which is at least a little less summery.

After weeks of television weather forecasters rejoicing and finding warm temperatures 10 degrees above average and sunshine "totally great", the heat is finally over and we are rejoicing because Ullr is not leaving the field to summer without a sound, but is at least giving it a serious fight back.

Today, the WeatherBlog is happy about the successes of modern science. As a student at an advanced stage, you occasionally ask yourself why you are actually doing what you are doing and who benefits from it. The usefulness of your own doctoral or master's thesis in particular may be questionable, but occasionally science in general achieves something cool and then you have the feeling that somehow and in general something is going right.

A strong Azores high will bring a northerly flow to the Alpine region. This will bring wintry temperatures and precipitation. Where exactly the latter will end up is still somewhat uncertain.

After an Irish Italian low forced the western Freride squadron to make a surprising start to the weekend fog, winter is now also arriving in the east. The snow cover in Switzerland now leaves little to be desired for November on the base side and there are hopes for more.

A Mediterranean low brings a base to the south, while the north hopes that even small animals make dung.

Snowfall brings Frankfurt Airport to a standstill, there is a 100-car pile-up on a highway in Hesse, Spanish climbers are complaining about the incessant rain, Andorra is drowning in snow and, at least in the Eastern Alps, nothing is happening at all, although a few days ago masses of snow were predicted here too. What's going on?