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WeatherBlog 18 2022/23 | Spring-like changeable

March does what it wants

by Lea Hartl • 03/22/2023
The rain lets up: Alpine idyll in Tyrol.

The rain lets up: Alpine idyll in Tyrol.

LH

The rain lets up: Alpine idyll in Tyrol.

LH
Spring has arrived not only in terms of the calendar but also astronomically and in terms of skiing. The weather is correspondingly mild and increasingly unstable towards the end of the week, with "April weather" tendencies also in evidence. Maybe even colder with precipitation next week? Otherwise: Another IPCC report. The content is not surprising, but still important.

Current situation and outlook

The WeatherBlog went skiing in the rain on Sunday for the first time in a while. The slopes were actually quite good, only at the bottom of the valley run it was so slushy that you slid off when you made a little more cut turns. The valley run was - of course - a white strip of artificial snow in a more or less green meadow. If you can smell the mud and wet forest in your nose while skiing, it's definitely spring! And that's not going to change any time soon. Today, Wednesday, is sunnier everywhere than last time and, as usual, very mild. Skiing in the rain is unlikely today, but you're sure to find slushy slopes anyway. The Alps are under the influence of an area of high pressure over the Mediterranean region with a west to south-westerly flow. The air masses transported to us as a result are relatively humid, which is why the firn conditions are not ideal if there are any really clear nights at all.

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500hPa geopotential and surface pressure, Friday, March 24, GFS northern hemisphere view. Strong SW current brings unsettled weather.

500hPa geopotential and surface pressure, Friday, March 24, GFS northern hemisphere view. Strong SW current brings unsettled weather.

meteociel.fr

500hPa geopotential and surface pressure, Friday, March 24, GFS northern hemisphere view. Strong SW current brings unsettled weather.

meteociel.fr

In the next few days, it will become increasingly unstable. The high pressure will gradually be pushed out of the way and we will find ourselves in a cyclonic (low pressure influence) situation with more or less the same direction of flow. Tomorrow will probably be cloudier again and the wind will pick up. You probably won't be able to ski in the rain yet, at most there will be a few drops. The chances of precipitation are better on Friday. You might even be able to ski in thunderstorms (not recommended, of course)! A cold front will bring rain in the course of the day and some fresh snow at high to very high altitudes - it's likely to remain below alarm levels everywhere. From today's perspective, the snow line will be somewhere around 2000m, possibly much higher in the western Alps. The thunderstorms embedded in the disturbance can also be interpreted as harbingers of spring: Thanks to increasing solar radiation (the equinox has just occurred!), it is already quite warm on the ground and in the air layers close to the ground. When cooler air flows in at altitude, the result is an unstable bottom-warm-top-cold stratification, which is very conducive to thunderstorms.

Unclouded sunshine and correspondingly good firn conditions are therefore unlikely over the next few days, but perhaps a few centimetres of snow will fall, at least in the high mountains. The relatively mild and unsettled westerly weather will remain with us at the weekend in a slightly different form. It's likely to be wet and colder at the beginning of next week. We're not going to go out on a limb just yet, but maybe winter will actually drop by again before the remaining snow has completely melted...

What happens now (or not) will affect us and future generations.

What happens now (or not) will have an impact on us and future generations.

IPCC

What happens now (or not) will have an impact on us and future generations.

IPCC

IPCC Synthesis Report

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has once again summarized what we have known for a long time and what can be read in detail on thousands of pages in the 6th IPCC Report. The climate measures currently implemented are not sufficient to prevent catastrophic climate change, let alone limit warming to the 1.5°C (or even 2°C) agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement. The faster and the more comprehensively we react, the more we can still limit warming and the more time we gain for adaptation measures. Fossil fuels must remain in the ground. We won't go into any more detail at this point and will limit ourselves to the following: It is urgent, there are possible solutions, "it's never too late to stop punching yourself in the face" (see video).

The rain lets up: Alpine idyll in Tyrol.

The rain lets up: Alpine idyll in Tyrol.

LH

The rain lets up: Alpine idyll in Tyrol.

LH

This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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