Nordstau

Okay... I have good news and bad news. You want it like in the action movie? The bad news first?

PG reader Randy-Random obviously has some catching up to do when it comes to polar vortex splits, and a revision lesson at the beginning of the year was always a good idea at school, so we'll confidently leave the fuss about individual snowflakes on individual mountains to our colleague Oracle and look at the bigger picture again.

After the first powder days of winter 2013/14 and high-pressure weather, the weather will become more unstable again at the weekend.

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.

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?

Last week it snowed 60 cm in 48 hours in Bregenz, the usually unexciting provincial capital of Vorarlberg, with 52 cm falling on February 8th, with impressive precipitation rates of up to 13 mm/h. This was thanks to the legendary Lake Effect. The spectacle was due to the legendary Lake Effect.

After the dump bog of the last few days, there is now a full northern congestion.

It has been snowing heavily on the northern slopes of the Alps recently. Our colleague Orakel has sounded the powder alarm twice in four days and that's saying something. We'll leave the specific details to him and focus on the bigger picture that makes it all possible.

After the unfortunately somewhat warm start, a whole series of small to medium dumps now follows. And that means PowderAlert again.

Finally there's a decent amount of powder again until Sunday. And things are looking good further afield too.

Another month has passed. It must be due to climate change! After a wet but mild January, February promises cooler temperatures and accumulated precipitation right from the start.

Last Saturday was, let's say, the most interesting day in the WeatherBlog's ski instructor career for a long time. Even getting out of the car in the pouring rain proved difficult for the entire team due to a lack of motivation. A few hundred meters up the gondola later, it was still almost as warm and still pouring, to the particular delight of those colleagues whose workplace is located on the magic carpet next to the gondola. Only at around 1800 m, at the top lift in the area, could the precipitation be described as snow with a little good will.