WeatherBlog 19 2021/22 | Winter is returning

Current situation and outlook

The permanent high of recent weeks has been weakening for several days and is gradually being replaced by a new pattern. The new players relevant to us are high pressure in the Azores area and low pressure near Scandinavia. This combination initially brought us a southerly flow and, as a result, another load of Saharan dust with a light foehn in the susceptible regions yesterday. Today it's enough for accumulating precipitation in the south and a cloud cover not seen for a long time in the north. In the course of today, the low pressure center will move closer and the current will turn first to westerly, then to northerly directions. This will gradually make it colder and precipitation will also set in in the north. The Sahara dust will be "washed out" and land on the ground.

Thursday will be more or less similar. The focus of the precipitation is likely to shift again somewhat with the development of an upper Italian low. While it will mainly snow or rain on the northern slopes of the Alps in the western Alps, the southern side of the Alps in the east will probably see more, at least on Thursday. For more information on the amount of fresh snow, see the Oracle, which has just woken up from its premature summer hibernation. It will be a few degrees colder again on Friday and the snow line is likely to drop to the higher valleys. It will continue to snow a little at the weekend, albeit not across the board and more in the form of occasional showers. The weather is likely to be unsettled and, as already mentioned, it will be much colder.

Next week will continue to be rather changeable. The April weather seems to want to live up to its name! The large-scale pattern (high pressure in the Atlantic, low pressure near Scandinavia) will remain in place from today's perspective, which means that disturbances from the NW could repeatedly be directed into the Alpine region.

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This view of little snow, old, brownish air mass in the valley. Photo from last weekend. — This view of little snow, old, brownish air mass in the valley. Photo from last weekend
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LH

March review: Dust-dry

The precipitation over the next few days will according to ZAMG just about prevent March 2022 from going down in Austrian history as the driest March ever. It will probably still be enough for a top 10 ranking. The situation is similar in the other Alpine countries. Locally, i.e. at individual station locations, many new warm, dry and sunny records were set. In Innsbruck, for example, there have never been so many March days in a row with temperatures above 20°C since records began. In Innsbruck and Graz, there has never been such a long period without precipitation in spring in the series of measurements. A look at the drought monitor for Germany shows that the drought is currently extreme, particularly in the south of the country.

500hPa geopotential and ground pressure, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday (GFS). Low pressure system with cold air from the north meets warm air in the south. Finally widespread precipitation and a significant drop in temperature over the next few days.

meteociel.fr

The snow conditions on the glaciers are also rather unpleasant. The precipitation in April would have to be quite massive to significantly improve the very low snow depths before the summer. Saharan dust on the snow surface is known to accelerate the melting of snow, which has further worsened the snow conditions.

So there are plenty of reasons to hope for abundant precipitation in the coming days in addition to the desire for better skiing conditions! The WeatherBlog has had more than enough of the high pressure for now and would like to see cool, rather wet weather for at least the next few weeks to improve the glacier mass balance and groundwater levels...