The next few days will bring changeable, mild, often foehn-like weather in the north. In the south, it will be cloudy and wet, possibly with late base-building for the high-altitude touring season. Also: On the occasion of World Weather Day, the WMO warns us to face the challenges of the future
Current situation and outlook
We are at the front of a trough that lies off the European Atlantic coast and extends quite far to the south. Mild, subtropical air is being directed towards the Alps via the Mediterranean. Clouds will accumulate in the south, while in the north it will be very mild and remain so for the time being with a föhn wind. The trough will gradually move eastwards and reach the Sahara region tomorrow, where it will pack a bit of dust. We'll get some of that too. Before the weekend, the southern part of the trough will drip off as an independent low and then waft around the western Mediterranean. Where exactly it will go is still uncertain, which means that the forecasts for the coming days and weekend are also quite uncertain. The remaining part of the trough in the north is moving towards the Baltic. While this will push cooler air from the north towards the Alps, at least on Friday, the dripped-off genoa low will still be in the south, clouding the sunshine. Apart from a temporary break on Friday, the foehn tendencies and correspondingly mild temperatures in the north will remain on the agenda over the weekend. In concrete terms, this means for the weather in the coming days: Well, somehow nothing half, nothing whole. Not totally sunny and rather no clear nights, in the north with foehn halfway okay but windy.
Südstau?
In terms of precipitation, the southerly flow is not uninteresting for the south/southwest. Thursday and Friday could see some accumulation in the usual congestion hotspots here, although this is still very uncertain in detail, as is the further development over the weekend. Unfortunately, with a zero degree line rather a bit above 2000m, the snow line will also be so high that you should definitely consider whether the mountain of your choice is really high enough in terms of weekend or other planning.
Miscellaneous
Last week was World Meteorological Day (March 23). This time it was held under the motto "Hotter, drier, weather. Face the future." A call to face a future in which it is not only getting warmer, but periods of drought and heavy rainfall are also becoming more frequent. The WMO Secretary-General made an urgent appeal to implement the agreement signed at the climate conference in Paris. Here is a clear summary from the WMO on Meteorology Day and the keywords hot, dry, wet. While an extremely dry summer in Austria in 2015 also resulted in considerable crop failures (see, for example, here and here), this is hardly noticeable as a supermarket visitor.
Drought or other climatic "stressors" put a strain on systems, be they structures of human society or the animal and plant world. Stable, functioning systems (Austrian supermarkets) can compensate for this. Systems that are already under stress in other ways often cannot, so that weather and climate problems further exacerbate other problems. Areas where political, economic, "general" stability is already almost non-existent suffer more (drought-related crises in North Africa and the Middle East, for example, read more e.g. here or here). Temperature anomalies 1880-2015 (NASA):
To brighten up the mood, here's a nice picture of the Greenland landscape from Nasa. Higher resolution and some info.
