Italientief

Due to the flu, today is more of a short weather update than a full blog.

Our Italian low has made its way north as a Vb low and is currently causing chaos in southern Germany – and is also bringing snow to the northern side of the Alps.

On the occasion of the fresh snowfall that Storm Heike is bringing to large parts of the Alps, we take a look at a few subtleties of the precipitation forecast.

The first dump is the sweetest, although hopefully not the deepest, because let's assume that, analogous to "the first cut is the deepest", the first dump will not also be the deepest. But you could say that the first real snowfall of the season is the one that causes the most excitement and anticipation, because it's finally starting properly.

The low pressure system that is making this weekend so inhospitable will really get going from today (15.4.2012) and in the south of the Upper Valais / in the Aosta Valley, – where there has already been over 30cm – there will be some more. But, and this is more interesting for most people now, it's also snowing where it's based, namely in the north. The direction of flow is slowly changing and by the evening it will have turned from east to northeast and then the flow may even turn to north.

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.