WeatherBlog 20 2018/19 | Sun ahead!

Current situation and outlook

The Alps are on the eastern edge of a high pressure system with a core over the British Isles. The resulting northerly flow is bringing cooler air masses and, at least in the eastern half of the country, clouds and even the odd snowflake, but the high is increasingly gaining ground from the west.

This can already be seen in the satellite image from Tuesday (right): From the main ridge to the north, the Alps are freshly snow-covered, in the east, the wools are still accumulating. Towards the west, the clouds on the northern slopes of the Alps are becoming less and less. And in the south, it's virtually cloudless with north föhn winds.

This time, however, the air at altitude is quite cool and the ground warms up quite a bit during the day as the sun gets stronger, which leads to more instability: the warm, "light" air on the ground wants to go up. This creates clouds and increases the susceptibility to showers. We are not yet at the instability level of summer heat thunderstorms, but at least spring clouds are slowly becoming the order of the day again. The more spring progresses, the more April approaches and the proverbial April weather - in April, the temperatures at high altitudes are usually still cold enough for snow if the flow direction is right, but the ground is often already warm enough to produce convective (snow) showers. The result is the typical seasonal alternation of sun, clouds, showers, sun, showers, Easter bunny.