A Mediterranean low brings the south a base, while the north hopes that even small animals make dung
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Current situation and outlook
The weather in the Alpine region will be dominated by a Mediterranean low over the next few days, which will cause accumulated precipitation in the southern Alps. It will also tend to remain cloudy in the north, although there may be a few foehn-induced clearings on Thursday. On Friday, the snowfall will probably spread to the northern Alps, with the south remaining favored. By Friday evening, half a meter could be possible locally, but not necessarily. The situation at the weekend is still uncertain, it could continue to snow heavily, but that doesn't have to be the case either. In any case, it won't be sunny.
There is some remarkable weather overseas again: in the Midwest of the USA, a combination of a powerful storm depression and unstable, warm air masses caused severe thunderstorms with huge hailstorms and house-displacing tornadoes. Thanks to successful forecasts and early warnings, there were fewer fatalities than there might have been. For once, the WeatherBlog, which usually strives for sobriety, recommends this human interest message to its readers (sniff!):
Review of winter 12/13
To mark the hopefully slowly substantial start of winter, here's a short review of the past winter on the occasion of the recently published seasonal report by the Austrian Avalanche Warning Services. The winter of 12/13 was characterized by an above-average number of Adriatic lows. In connection with this, there were also repeated strong foehn and rain events (for example the Christmas thaw with temperatures of up to 20°C), which left their mark on the snow cover. The most critical month for avalanches in Austria was March, with a combination of foehn storms, fresh snow, frost and a sub-optimal old snowpack. On 23 days in March, 84 avalanche events were recorded, in which 7 people died. In total, 27 people died in avalanche accidents in Austria in the 12/13 season, 14 of them in Tyrol. While the total number of registered burials was only moderately higher than the previous year, there were around a third more fatalities. There were also 27 fatalities in France last season, 28 in Italy, 22 in Switzerland, 4 in Slovenia and one person died in Germany. In all countries except Germany, there were more deaths than in the previous year. In the 11/12 season, avalanche warning level 4 was issued on 7 percent of the days in Tyrol, whereas in the 12/13 season it was not issued on a single day. (All data from the 12/13 season report of the Austrian LWDs).
