Luftmassengrenze

The lucky ConditionsReporters who made it to Piedmont, spoiled by PowderAlerts, can enjoy friendly touring weather over the next few days. For the rest of the Alps, it will be a little more unstable. Particularly in the east, the general development and especially the precipitation options are not yet easy to assess thanks to the indecisive development of low pressure and a fickle air mass boundary.

After the recent snowfall, the conditions for freeriding and especially ski touring are perfect across the Alps. It's chilly, at least north of the Alps, and half of Germany is also enjoying classic winter weather with frost and a hint of snow. It's like imperial weather!

The current PowderAlert is a rollercoaster of emotions. Fresh snow: great, finally! Especially in the Western Alps, where hardly anyone can remember such a dry winter. But the snow line bounces back and forth with every front. Will the meagre base in the mid-altitudes be washed away for good? In any case, the fresh snow is good for the glaciers and maybe there will be a ski touring spring in the high mountains after all?

An air mass boundary is keeping us busy today. The cold air of the last few days is slowly giving way to warmer air masses from the south. This will lead to dangerous black ice on the roads on the northern edge of the Alps. Apart from that, the borderline weather situation will initially bring some precipitation in the north and then a change to foehn-like, milder weather.

Unfortunately, the finale is rather counterintuitive for a classic Ullrflix series, namely much too warm and not very exciting: More snow is coming from the west, but it's getting EVEN warmer than before.

"You don't say nice weather!" - That's what we learned at university. Of course, you don't say "bad weather" either. In fact, the WeatherBlog still tries to avoid such subjective expressions, after all, tastes differ and if you try hard, you can still get something out of boring weather conditions (technical term) from a meteorological point of view.

Spring is progressing rapidly, but has to pause for breath: Cool air of polar origin is reaching the Alps from the north-east and it is getting fresh again with snowfall limits in some of the higher valleys. Maybe it's better to wait a few more days with the summer tires!

This time we start with a look at the big picture, or at least the northern half of the big picture. The polar vortex has not been swirling nicely around the pole for a while now, but is wobbling around irregularly with several low-pressure centers.

To kick off the 2016/17 WeatherBlog season, we are addressing a topical question from PG user Peleiade: "What do I need to read? The polar vortex is weakening, extreme mildness in the Aleutian Islands and there is even a threat of a polar vortex split in early November? What does that mean in terms of fresh snow?"

Last weekend was interesting in terms of weather and regrettable in terms of skiing. After heavy rain during the night, temperatures of around 20 degrees were measured in many places during the day on Sunday. The leader in Austria was Pottschach (Lower Austria) with 23.2° - a new national record for February. What was going on?

The weather in Central Europe is currently divided into two parts. A sharp air mass boundary separates the north and east from the much milder south and west. The differences are particularly evident in Germany, where, for example, temperature differences of up to 20° were measured on Monday. In Werl (NRW), on the warm side, the daily maximum temperature was 5.5°C, while in Diepholz, 120 km away on the cold side, it was only -4.7°C. The Alps are on the warm side of the air mass boundary in a humid westerly current.

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?