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WeatherBlog 10 2024/25| Concrete high, record heat 2024

Outlook: High pressure and inversion

by Lea Hartl 01/15/2025
Apart from a short, unspectacular break today (Wednesday), there will be plenty of sunshine and little chance of fresh snow for the time being. It will become increasingly milder at higher altitudes over the next few days, while the cold air will linger in the valleys.

Current situation and outlook

In contrast to last week, there is little new in the west this time. We are under the influence of a strong area of high pressure that stretches roughly from the Azores to the British Isles. This will not change significantly for the time being, although today (Wednesday) a short frontal passage in the east will cause some cloudy weather for a short time. It will probably even snow a few centimetres in the "northern eastern Alps" from around Tyrol to the east. This should be enjoyed as much as possible, as it then looks like sunshine and little else until next week. The Atlantic high will slide further eastwards and is likely to form a "bridge" to further high pressure over Eastern Europe. "Underneath", i.e. south of the bridge, lies a small, drained low. This will result in a so-called Rex block, in which a high pressure area settles over a low pressure area and does not move away so quickly.

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Temperatures will rise a little day by day from Thursday until the weekend, after which it will slowly cool down again according to current modelling. The air mass over the next few days will be warm but dry, so the snow in the shade will probably remain relatively good for a long time, provided the wind doesn't get involved. Some valley locations are likely to end up under a blanket of fog, while elsewhere there will "only" be cold and increasingly poor air in the inversion.

Theoretically, there are prospects of changes in the crystal ball from around Tuesday next week, but at the moment it doesn't look reliable or productive in any way. The sunny weather can certainly be utilised for skiing, but apart from the few flakes today, there is no fresh snow in sight for the time being. 

Warm, warmer, 2024

The new year is still young and the old one is still halfway fresh in our memories, so let's take a quick look back. 2024 was the warmest year on a global scale since modern records began, according to both the European climate service Copernicus and its US counterpart. Copernicus also notes that 2024 is the first year in which the global mean temperature has exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

This was to be expected and does not yet mean that the so-called 1.5°C limit, which was set as a target at the 2015 climate conference in Paris, has now been missed. This target refers to exceeding (or, of course, not exceeding) 1.5°C on a long-term average; in this context, the term 10 or 20 years is usually used. We are very obviously heading towards this, but we are not quite there yet.

The 1.5°C target is important for various reasons, but it's also not a wall that we run towards and if we crash into it, it's all over. 1.5° is better than 2° and much better than 3°, but 1.6° and 1.7° and 1.8° etc. would also be better than 2° or 3°. 1.5°C will almost certainly be exceeded in the longer-term average in the near future, but that doesn't mean that it won't matter anyway. 

The world is currently on course for >3°C by 2100. The WetterBlog does not like this at all. 

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