Skip to content

Cookies 🍪

This site uses cookies that need consent.

Learn more

Zur Powderguide-Startseite Zur Powderguide-Startseite
WeatherBlogs

WeatherBlog 4 2021/22 | Accompanying blog to the alarm

Still wintry

by Lea Hartl 12/01/2021
There will be a brief spell of sunshine today (Wednesday), followed by more snow on the northern slopes of the Alps. The weekend is also expected to be very wintry with snow down to low altitudes.

Current situation and outlook

We are on the western edge (in the direction of flow on the back) of a powerful low-pressure complex that is slowly moving eastwards. In recent days, the very meridional flow has created impressive temperature contrasts between northern Europe and the southeast: The coldest night in a long time was recorded in northern Sweden, while local temperature records were broken in Greece. The latter were caused by a south-westerly flow in front of the trough and foehn effects. The former is due to the polar air mass, which has worked its way far south through the strongly corrugated jet.

This large wave in the jet stream will continue to keep us busy. However, a smaller wave will briefly appear today, which is embedded in the overriding current and brings intermediate high pressure and, for the northern Alps, a few rays of sunshine and a significant rise in temperature. We are in the warm sector following yesterday's warm front. However, this spell will be short-lived. It will cloud over again this evening and the next cold front will approach from the northwest. The snow line will drop again, although this time the air masses will come from the comparatively warm North Atlantic rather than directly from the cold Arctic Ocean. Details on the snowfall over the next few days can be found in the current PowderGuide.com.

.
WeatherBlogs
presented by

Further developments

From today's perspective, the weather will be comparatively "friendly" again on Friday. Once again, a small ripple in the large wave will bring brief calm. The strongly curved Azores High will continue to be decisive for us. Towards the weekend, it will stretch a little further north than before. For us, this will cause the current to swing more north and less west. In other words, the weekend will be quite cold again and there is likely to be more snow in the north.

The situation will then become increasingly unclear from the start of the new week. More Atlantic influence seems likely, which would mean milder, still changeable weather for us, although, as already mentioned, there is still considerable uncertainty regarding the large-scale development. We agree with the oracle and say: beer sacrifices to Ullr can't hurt.

Avalanche warning services start the season

With the snowfall, the avalanche risk naturally also increases. Where November snow was left over before the current precipitation, the new snow usually falls on a layer of old snow that has been transformed to build up. In addition to the fresh snow itself, there are also wind loads and temperature fluctuations. The SLF has been publishing daily avalanche bulletins for a few days now, the Euregio LWD (Tyrol, South Tyrol, Trentino) and the Salzburger published the first bulletin yesterday evening. The other Austrian federal states will also follow in the next few days, as far as can be seen from their websites, or - like Bavaria - have posted an update on the current situation.

Especially at the beginning of the season, the warning services also need to get an idea of the situation. Reports of avalanche observations or danger signs and snow profile data, which are entered into the relevant portals, are helpful and always welcome!

A survey is currently being conducted on the Euregio Avalanche Report to find out who uses the products and how, and where there is still room for improvement. You can register to take part here. Also pleasing: the home pages of the various Austrian LWDs now also display at least some of the hazard level maps of the neighboring federal states, as well as the Swiss map.

ℹ️PowderGuide.com is nonprofit-making, so we are glad about any support. If you like to improve our DeepL translation backend, feel free to write an email to the editors with your suggestions for better understandings. Thanks a lot in advance!

Show original (German)

Related articles

Comments

WeatherBlogs
presented by