Saharastaub

The tough omega situation is wobbling and the warm, sunny weather is coming to an end for the time being towards the weekend. With cold air from the north and the chance of low pressure developing in the Mediterranean, it could even get quite wintry again, but the details are still unclear. In any case, it will become increasingly unstable from today and the dry, reliable firn phase will be over for the time being.

Unfortunately, too much time has passed for many people since the last major snowfall in mid-January. Since then, a very stable area of high pressure has dominated large parts of Central Europe and ensured long-lasting warm temperatures. This triggered euphoria among some climbing enthusiasts, powder fans got long faces and yet not all freeriders lost their motivation, because the best snow after powder is known to be firn. But just as with fresh snowfall, there are a few things to bear in mind when there is no snowfall.

Yay! another alert, but it's probably getting too warm. The last alert was perfect, but this one is just glop©* *the © is silent and is only important because PowderGuide owns all registered naming rights to this water-saturated fresh snow.

The WeatherBlog is taking a summer break, unless there's another onset of winter with corresponding blog inspiration in between. Over the next few days, the south-west will be in full swing again - there would probably be a PowderAlert if our oracle wasn't already in summer mode.

The weather can be summarised as follows at the moment: Before the summer is after the summer is before the summer and sometimes it snows. At the moment we're in a "it's snowing again" phase. Tomorrow summer will return.

Foehn storms in the north, metres of fresh snow at (very) high altitudes in the south, record temperatures followed by a sharp drop in temperature with a cold front: the last few days have been quite something. The weather has now calmed down somewhat. The next, much weaker southerly foehn is on the horizon for the weekend, probably with summer heat and no precipitation.

The mean temperature for February this year corresponds to a warmer than average March. In all Alpine countries, February was much warmer than usual and records were broken in many cases. The statistical winter (December, January, February) was also one of the warmest on record. Of course, the skiing winter is not over yet, and there will be more to come in the south at the weekend.

As every year, the SLF Winter Report provides a comprehensive review of the past snow and avalanche season in the Swiss Alps. The weather conditions and the development of the snow cover are presented in detail. Avalanche accidents in the 21/22 season are listed in tabular form, and some selected accidents are analysed in more detail.

The forecast for the Easter weekend is still quite uncertain, but at the moment it looks like calm, rather cool weather. The current southerly flow (partly with Saharan dust again) is expected to end on Friday with a cold front. This will be followed by a north-easterly flow with cooler temperatures.

The skiing winter is not over yet, but it is slowly coming to an end. This can be recognized by the fact that the first reviews of the season are already available, for example from the SLF.

Long awaited and now almost here: a real change in the weather with plummeting temperatures and snow in many valleys is just around the corner. Over the next few days, it will be deep winter again in the Alps

The unclouded sunshine is history. Not because winter is making a sustained comeback, but because dust is being stirred up in the Sahara. In keeping with the current drought, we are being supplied with real desert air. A small disturbance is also moving through the north-east today and it is raining or snowing a little, but there are still no significant changes in sight.