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WeatherBlog 19 2022/23 | Consistently unstable

From troughs to tornadoes

by Sebastian Müller 03/29/2023
The changeable spring weather is still really cold in places and at times already thundery! The meandering jet stream continues to indicate stratospheric influence and it seems that we will still experience some fluffy precipitation in April. The weather in the Alps remains unsettled and summer is still a long way off.

New onset of winter

A deep trough crossed Central Europe this week and brought frost and fresh snow from Scandinavia to the northern slopes of the Alps, as announced in the last PowderAlert. The measuring station on the Seegrube near Innsbruck even recorded 85cm of fresh snow in the last three days - winter is not giving up! It can rightly be assumed that the influence of the collapse of the polar vortex in the stratosphere is to blame: four PowderAlerts in March speak for themselves. And this influence from above, which in principle means a slowdown in the westerly wind zone, may well continue. The outlook remains moody and spring-like.

The next few days

The current trough moves eastwards and then stretches deep into the Balkans, where it is also likely to cause another onset of winter. There are signs of a few days of mild and disturbance-free westerly weather for the Alpine region. However, by Sunday at the latest, the circulation will have deteriorated considerably and a new trough will develop over Europe. A low will form in the Mediterranean region and cause some thundery precipitation. The northern side of the Alps can once again hope for an influx of Arctic air masses and a northerly flow. However, this time the trough is less pronounced, warmer and more unstable, so that some of the precipitation will come down in liquid form. Nevertheless, the weather kitchen is still in full operation and those who still want powder will certainly find it somewhere on the menu.

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Tornadoes in the USA

Thunderstorms are known to feed on the thermodynamic instability of the atmosphere, for which the relative temperature differences are essential. This is why they not only occur on hot and humid summer days, but also in spring, when mild air from the subtropics meets polar air masses. In the USA, where everything is somewhat more extreme as usual, there has already been a first phase of severe thunderstorms in the last few days. Cold polar air was brought to the warm Gulf of Mexico in a trough and, accompanied by wind shear, supercells with tornadoes developed from Texas to Florida. One tornado reached category EF4, killing more than 26 people. In light of this, the first thunderstorms in our Alpine region seem like drizzle, and the cancellation of the Verbier Xtreme is just as easy to get over.

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