Südstau

Between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea stretches the 1,100 km long Caucasus - a mountain range up to 5,000 m high that acts as a natural border between Russia and the Middle East. At the heart of this mountain range lies Georgia - a geopolitically fractured country with a fascinating culture and breathtaking mountain landscapes. The Caucasus has long been a legendary freeride and ski touring area, hosts the FWT and is once more receiving a good amount of fresh snowfall.

Both the participants of the PowderGuide final meeting in Engelberg and Mose in the border triangle fully enjoyed the last snowfalls. Elsewhere, unfortunately, there was also slow glop paired with dangerous avalanche conditions. An intermediate high is currently giving us spring fever again, but will be replaced by a southerly flow with lots of precipitation at the weekend. We hope this will bring another PowderAlert, although the state of the precipitation seems to be more liquid than fluffy.

Well, after warming up with the alert limit in Alert 7, Ullr our favorite god finally gives us some real snow. The only downer: it snows the most where there is little snow and where the foundation of the snowpackis rather dangerous.

Two PowderAlerts after a long drought! And at least in parts of the Alps, it's continuing to be reasonably wintry! The south in particular is benefiting from a relatively stationary area of low pressure that lies diagonally over Spain and France and is repeatedly producing südstau this week. In the north (east), the amounts remain lower and will not significantly improve the snow conditions, but will hopefully at least alleviate the acute risk of forest fires.

After weeks of drought, there is finally some hope – at least in the south. This small snowfall could be just the beginning.

Not so long ago in a mountain range close close by..... DROUGHT. The stars don't lie. At least not the ones in the PowderGuide ConditionReports. One star, two stars. There's rarely more for the snow conditions at the moment.

For several years now, a handful and a half of friends have been getting together once a winter to explore more or less distant mountain regions on skis and splitboards, but also to get to know other countries and cultures. They have travelled far to Romania, Kamchatka or Armenia, but have also travelled closer, for example to Ticino. This time, in winter 2023/24, the destination was chosen by lottery for the Julian Alps in Slovenia, with the additional requirement of 'winter camping'. The fresh snow forecast maps on PowderGuide.com were particularly colourful for the start and everyone was full of anticipation. But things turned out a little differently than planned... read the first part to find out how the first few days went!

You're supposed to have good intentions in the new year and the oracle wants to be less serene and more enthusiastic in his old age. Ullr also takes heart and wants to give us more powder.

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.

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.

This alert is not an alert, at least not in the alert period, because it is too warm to use it until Tuesday. But more on that below.

Our colleague Orakel has already announced it: The südstau is back and the next few days will be turbulent. The traditional Easter snowfall will only fall as snow at very high altitudes on the main ridge and south of it. Otherwise there will be rain and foehn winds with very high temperatures.