The Mediterranean lows that have been so frequent in recent winters have been rare so far this season. Low pressure system Virginie will end the west/north-west trend, at least in the (very) short term, and the south-east can look forward to it.
Virginia, a Mediterranean low born out of a trough extending as far as Africa, is pushing towards the south-eastern Alps today. It is also spilling over the mountains to the north, but is causing considerable amounts of fresh snow, especially in the Karawanken, Carnic and Julian Alps; half a meter is now being reported in the Gailtal valley from around 1000m, depending on the congestion, and in some places significantly more. Intermediate highs will then prevail again on Thursday and Virginie will largely be history. From Friday, the now familiar mild and humid north-westerly weather will return. A small cold front on Friday will be followed by a warm front on Saturday night, with a little snow on the eastern edge of the Alps and not very cold temperatures. The stormy wind will be the main source of excitement at the weekend.
Otherwhere and elsewhere
Meanwhile, the eastern half of the USA is once again having difficulties with the weather. An advance of polar cold air is bringing very low temperatures in places and almost half a meter of snow in New York State. The whole thing led to closed schools, power outages, canceled flights and mass pile-ups. Worldwide, 2015 was the warmest year in recorded history. Locally and regionally, this can also turn out differently, as the ZAMG once again shows based on an evaluation of Austria. Some of the records set in 2014 were exceeded, others were not. The weather patterns are responsible for these rather small-scale differences: 2014 brought the warmest autumn in recorded history and many southerly foehns. The extremely hot summer of 2015 was much more pronounced in the north of Austria than in the south. The last few months of 2015 are likely to be remembered by many as unusually warm - this is true in the mountains, but in many southern valleys there were persistent inversions, which dampened the average temperatures. ZAMG also emphasizes that the influence of El Niño on our weather cannot be clearly identified: Although El Niño was weak in 2014 compared to 2015, the temperature deviations in Austria remained more or less the same.
