WeatherBlog 14 2021/22 | The storm is subsiding

The strongly pronounced tropospheric polar vortex is located somewhat off-center between the extreme northeast of Canada and Greenland. We ignore the stratospheric polar vortex (one floor further up) (see above), but it fits into the same picture. Between Canada and Greenland, very cold polar air is directed over the northwestern Atlantic. The cold air meets the much warmer, more humid Atlantic air there. This is a rather explosive combination that provides a continuous supply of energy for strong low-pressure development in the North Atlantic. The zonal and very powerful jet over the Atlantic then pushes the lows directly towards Europe, where they arrive from a north-westerly direction.

Outlook

This basic pattern is still in place, but is slowly weakening. Today (Wednesday, left map above), a corresponding front is also grazing the northern Alps, but the wind speeds are no longer as extreme as they were recently. Tomorrow (Thursday) will be briefly calmer and quite sunny everywhere, with the next disturbance approaching in the evening or in the night to Friday (middle map): east of a low-pressure area developing over Greenland, the Azores High will be able to bulge up and undulate the jet, so that the Alps will move into a more northerly flow (most recently: west to northwest). However, this is significantly less turbulent and energetic than the weather of the last few days. "Unsettled" in this case (for Fri. and Sat.) does not mean gales and massive amounts of fresh snow, but a few moderate snow showers and the occasional sunny window.