Nordstau

The outlook is turbulent. On the one hand, seasonal shopping, baking cookies, vacation planning, family management and the like are on the agenda. On the other hand, we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a seasonal polar vortex and what this means for our winter weather! Summary of the next few days: stormy south föhn, colder from the weekend and snow from the N-NW.

Long awaited and now finally here after a long, hot summer: the first snowflakes at below 2000m, sugared mountains, push messages from the avalanche warning services. Even with a lot of motivation, it's not quite enough for ski tours yet, but we're still happy about the first hint of winter mood.

At last. The time has come. Ullr sends us a traffic jam where it doesn't rain heavily, it doesn't warm up immediately, or the Dutch and Piefkes invade the promised land of Tyrol. (Because they're more likely to go to Switzerland this time).

It starts to snow and the oracle forgets about the snow? No, not at all.

Everyone should have noticed by now: It's snowing. As predicted by the oracle, the amount of fresh snow in the Nordstau so far is impressive. The 48-hour difference in fresh snowfall on the Seegrube is over one meter and there is likely to be more to come today. Other reservoir locations have been similarly richly endowed. Almost the entire northern Alps have a 4-meter forecast for today.

Ullr takes heart in best politician style and promises everything to everyone! At least in the German-speaking Alpine region, things should be going quite well from Monday. (German-speaking regions south of the main Alpine ridge may forgive me this simplification...)

Sun in the west, cold and snow in the east - this is roughly how the current and future weather situation in Europe can be summarized. At the moment, this means snow chaos in Athens and drought in the Western Alps, among other things. The dividing line between cool "summer" and picture-book winter will move closer to us again over the next few days and, as is so often the case, there is cause for cautious hope. But beware: those who hope may be disappointed!

Court councillors, horse-drawn carriage drivers and Sissi fans finally have reason to cheer, because unlike many, many alarms, today it's not "from France to the Arlberg", but Ullr makes Felix Austria happy.

The high pressure weather continues to accompany us. It will remain very sunny up to and including the weekend. Temperatures will rise and it will be a lot milder again, especially at higher altitudes. High fog will hang in many valleys and it will be much colder than in the mountains thanks to inversions. Weather change with a chance of fresh snow next week.

Just as the squirrel busily collects small food supplies in the fall, the Alps collect Ullr's small gifts in early winter.

Since the beginning of the week, the very mild phase that has kept us busy recently has come to an end. High pressure still prevails in the Alpine region and the weather is autumnal in character, with high fog in many valleys and sunshine for those who make it out of the fog. A change in the weather is on the horizon for the weekend, which should make the whole Alpine region feel much more like winter.

In contrast to the last few years and the fears after the summery episode in March, there is now another nice alarm in April! With a northerly thaw and heavy showers and possibly record high altitude cold! (MeteoSwiss says: If minus 40 really does reach the Alps at an altitude of 5000m, you have to go back to 1973 to find anything comparable).