Spring can easily be mistaken for summer at the moment, especially on sweaty ski tours in black Gore-Tex clothing and merino wool underwear, which you only don't rip off and throw into the nearest crevasse because of certain social norms.
Location and views
The Alps remain under the influence of a large high over Western Europe. Over the next few days, this high will move slightly regressively to the west, allowing disturbances from the north-east to reach the Alpine region. A cold front will brush the eastern Alps in the night to Friday and the weekend will be significantly cooler and changeable compared to the last few days. The return of the almost wintry conditions is not permanent, spring cannot be driven away and will probably be back by the beginning of next week. Nevertheless, there could be a powder turn or two in the east at the weekend; it should certainly be more productive than the sleet showers last weekend.
Review
In general, the past weekend: It's a bit of a strange feeling when you're skiing through the best powder while spring clouds form, as they usually do in July. The radiation balance has been positive again for some time. This means that the earth warms up more during the day than it cools down at night, which is logically conducive to convective processes. The negative radiation balance in winter favors stable atmospheric stratification up to inversion, in which convection is suppressed. If an air parcel is lifted, it cools down to the condensation level at a dry adiabatic rate of approx. 1°C per 100 meters of altitude, and above that at a wet adiabatic rate of only approx. 0.6°C per 100 meters. With stable stratification, the temperature of the air parcel is lower than that of the surroundings from a certain point onwards (see diagram). Even if an air parcel heats up so much on the ground that it can rise a little, it is slowed down or stopped completely. In an unstable stratified atmosphere, on the other hand, the air parcel is warmer than the surrounding air up to great heights and can rise unhindered. In summer, cumulus clouds often only form because the sun heats the ground considerably. Last weekend, a drop of cold air provided some additional stability and this was enough for the first warm thunderstorms of the year. So if you've had enough of winter, you won't have to wait too much longer. Everyone else can take comfort in the fact that the days will start getting shorter again from June 21.
