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WeatherBlog 3 2021/22 | Wintery prospects!

Change in the weather at the weekend

by Lea Hartl 11/24/2021
Since the beginning of the week, the very mild phase that has kept us busy recently has come to an end. High pressure still prevails in the Alpine region and the weather is autumnal in character, with high fog in many valleys and sunshine for those who make it out of the fog. A change in the weather is on the horizon for the weekend, which should make the whole Alpine region feel much more like winter.

Current situation and outlook

As already suspected last week, an Atlantic block will be relevant for further developments, which is becoming increasingly apparent in the models. Currently, events in the Atlantic are still of secondary importance for the weather forecast, but this will change over the next few days. At the moment, the Alps are located in a high that stretches from the eastern Mediterranean to northern Germany. This area is flanked by a low over Spain and a larger low pressure zone in the east. Our high pressure system will bring plenty of sunshine almost everywhere today (Wednesday).

However, it will become increasingly foehn-like due to the influence of the Spanish low. On the northern slopes of the Alps, it will be somewhat warmer than recently. In the far southwest, accumulating precipitation is likely to start this evening. This development will continue on Thursday: Föhn in the north, cloudy and wet in the south. In the western Alps, the precipitation is likely to spread, while in the east it will remain dry for longer on the north side.

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The driving force behind all of this is a pronounced area of high pressure that is expanding more and more in the Atlantic. By Thursday, it should almost completely "fill" the northern Atlantic from the Azores to Greenland. The stronger the high becomes and the further north it stretches, the stronger the counter-movement will be downstream (in the east). The flow becomes strongly meridional over Central Europe and the polar front slides southwards. Also in its wake: cold air masses that are heading in a fairly direct slide towards the Alps. From Friday onwards, it is likely to be significantly colder and increasingly wet more or less everywhere. The weekend also looks cold and quite snowy, even if there is still some uncertainty about the amount of fresh snow to be expected. Several fronts will hit the Alpine arc from the north or northwest, which means that the northern accumulations will be favored, especially on Sunday. The WeatherBlog suspects that things will also start to get interesting for our PowderOracle from Sunday onwards!

In the medium term, it will remain quite wintry for the time being. A large omega layer, as it is currently forming, is stubborn. The basic pattern of pressure distribution is likely to remain in place until next week. According to the current model opinion, the constellation will then shift a little and we will come under the influence of the extensive Atlantic high. It will then slip back into a wintry option in the distant crystal ball range. As usual, we're not putting too much stock in this just yet, but the conditions for a more sustainable start to winter in the Alps are currently pretty good.

PG Weather starts the season, new snow maps at SLF

The pleasing weather development can also be followed again in the PG Powdermap over the next few days. We are starting a test run on Thursday and hope that the usual data will be available again as normal from Friday.

The SLF snow maps have also been updated in time for the change in the weather. The maps are now available on a zoomable map platform (not unlike the PG Powdermap!) and are a little more interactive. In addition, unlike before, data from automatic weather stations is now also included for the new snow maps.

All good signs for an early and proper start to winter!

This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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