 Poster: A snowHead
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@Garfield, there was a few days later because I went skiing there after buying my season pass!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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12z ECM draws cold air from the east across the Alps towards the end of the run. Just one run, but another indication that more wintry weather may arrive with, well, winter.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Meteo France on current snow depths.
http://www.meteofrance.fr/actualites?articleId=18084138
- relatively heavy recent snowfall.
- La Clusaz, Montgenèvre, l'Alpe d'Huez, Courchevel, Val Thorens and Tignes all had skiing this weekend.
- normally at this stage only Val Thorens is open.
- deeper than normal snowfall in Southern Alps and South of Isère (though not in parts of Savoie).
- current warm and sunny weather will melt, at least in part, snow on slopes facing the sun.
Nevertheless whilst there is snow at altitude the temperatures as a whole in November have been mild (2014 is on track to be the warmest year on record without a very cold December).
http://www.zamg.ac.at/cms/de/klima/news/2014-waermstes-jahr-seit-messbeginn
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00z GFS goes (very) cold in low res (ie FI). So... Waiting.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| nozawaonsen wrote: |
| 00z GFS goes (very) cold in low res (ie FI). So... Waiting. |
The 2nd onwards is looking very cold AND pretty wet  for pretty much all of the alps. Long way off yet tho.
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| nozawaonsen wrote: |
Meteo France on current snow depths.
- current warm and sunny weather will melt, at least in part, snow on slopes facing the sun.
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Has melted... up to about 2300m on south faces, to 1900m on cold north sector slopes.
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Two weeks today - the temps COULD be literally Baltic in the UK.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@AthersT, Just been reading the BBC monthly outlook and with the exception of a few colder interludes they are forecasting nothing significantly cold for the UK for the next month.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2635167
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the plastic sheeting is going down to protect the grass in Tignes (at least i think thats what its for), guess that means they reckon the next time it snows its going to stick around in resort.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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As the saying goes 'even a broken clock is right twice a day' 
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| ewanmalone wrote: |
| the plastic sheeting is going down to protect the grass in Tignes (at least i think thats what its for), guess that means they reckon the next time it snows its going to stick around in resort. |
Ooh they've put it all round by the play park, I've not seen them cover that bit before. There seem to be more tyres around this year as well.
They know it'll snow eventually! I'm sure the first proper fall of the season won't be too far away.
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You know it makes sense.
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@Atomic_Mick, tbh you'd be as well reading your tea leaves as that.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Long range climate forecasts are fairytales, and as such they are very entertaining. As for correlation with reality... I guess it depends on your imagination. Besides, I am of the unverified opinion that most climate models overheat.
This is the CFS forecast for November in North America issued in mid september, tell that to the residents of Buffalo, NY, after a snow dump of over 2m in a couple of days.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/CFSv2/CFSv2seasonal.shtml
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Poster: A snowHead
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@robboj, to be fair to them they do qualify what they say on there often by saying any further than a week out there tends to be more uncertainty - i only really posted that link in response to a post saying it could be very cold in 2 weeks time - well it will be december by then so it wouldn't be the biggest shock for it to be cold at times seeing as it is actually wintertime.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| davidof wrote: |
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The ski club of GB are describing off piste conditions at l'Alpe d'Huez as "varied". That seems entirely accurate, if a mix of snow, rocks, mud and grass isn't varied I'm not sure what is.
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Lol yes that would be on the optimistic side to say the very least. Looking warm for the next few days with any precip not white below about 2000m in French Alps.
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I hope a weather guru here can help me understand the following mystery.
I check two weather sites daily for snow in Italy - snow-forecast and j2ski.
Looking at the forecast for Gressoney, Italy, for example, j2ski forecasts 40cm new snow till Saturday, while snow-forecast predicts *none*.
In Arabba, it's 20:0 in favor of j2ski.
Now, I understand that different weather models give different predictions, but it's not all black magic, is it? Esp. when looking just a few days fwd?
(image won't show here inline, so here's a link)
http://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bykb8Ljv3x8_ckhUdEU4a1R6Zms
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Ask them. And if they answer BS or pretend to be infallible, then ignore them.
j2ski does not say anything about the origin of the data, so I suspect it is probably data mining (scanning the web for that information).
snow-forecast says they use the GFS, but they don't say at what resolution. GFS comes at 0.5, 1 and 2.5 degree resolution (roughly 55, 110 and 275 km). For the mountains do not trust anything of lower resolution that the 0.5°, and even that is a bit limited.
If the site sells accommodation and ski packages, you need to consider whether a good forecast is better for their business.
Personally I check GFS maps (wetterzentrale, meteociel, meteoexploration, NOAA) for a general idea and then look at the WRF output for detailed and more reliable information for the next 3 days (meteoexploration, lamma). I also check the ensembles (1, 2, 3) to get an idea of how uncertain are the forecasts.
They say that the European model ECMWF is better, but nobody knows, because we pay then 40 million euros every year to produce the results and keep them hidden from the taxpayer (unless you pay an additional fortune for them).
The WRF gives more than zero but less than j2ski.
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Any sign of a decent snowfall coming anytime soon?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Raven, GFS shows a marked cool down for pretty well all of the Alps by next Tuesday or Wednesday. As usual the further out you go the scatter gets greater but it's mainly on the low side of average temperature wise with a steady daily precipitation as opposed to big dumps and nothing for days.
So, whilst emphasising the usual caveats from the middle of next week it is forecast cold for the foreseeable with some snowfall every day, allowing the snow pack to build safely and the bashers to work effectively. Ill take that now!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Thanks @robboj, . I really need to step away from the forecasts. I'm not in Val D'Isere until the last week of January so chances are I'll be fine.
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| cota4000 wrote: |
They say that the European model ECMWF is better, but nobody knows, because we pay then 40 million euros every year to produce the results and keep them hidden from the taxpayer (unless you pay an additional fortune for them).
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Nobody knows ? Well actually, 10 day forecasts by location derived from the ECM operational are freely available at yr.no which in turn are easiest to assess alongside forecasts derived from the 0.5 degree resolution GFS via xcweather.
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You know it makes sense.
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Travelled from Zurich to Milan and the only place there was any deacent snowfall was the Italian side of the Gothard Tunnel but quickly dissqpeared again. The local ski resort in Central Switzerland albeit a small one had all preparations finished by November 15th but they are still paragliding up there!!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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DFL,
I suggest waiting for nozawaonsen. If there are experts here- nozawaonsen is one of them 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@RedRun, that's very kind of you, but I'd happily doff my hat to @moffatross, I simply post more often.
@dfl, another possibility is simply that they are using the same model (probably the GFS operational run) but updating at different times. So one using the 00z output another the 06z output.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Colder than average temperatures for the start of winter now look likely from 02 December.
That comes on the back of generally milder than average temperatures during autumn.
Early winter snowfall will rapidly make up an autumn deficit.
But still unclear when first substantial winter snowfall will arrive, though it will be worth keeping an eye on how this interacts with the existing limited base.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Does the cold mean that resorts can now start their snowmaking?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@nozawaonsen, Their fees page gives values in euro, hence the confusion. My point was that if it is paid by the public it should be available to the public. This of course has some limitations, I do not want the public to handle nuclear weapons, which are also paid with public money, but for scientific research and data it should all be open access if it is tax payer money.
The nonsense of European attitudes to weather data is that they are actually loosing money by charging for it. There is a good report (although a bit old, now differences are even higher) that shows the return on investment for the GFS and for the ECMWF, GFS beats the European by 10 times or so: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/sp/Borders_report.pdf (see Table pag. 5).
As for the ZAMG claim of warmest year on record. Firstly it is misleading, even if they clarify it later, the year is not finished, so the claim is preposterous. Secondly, that is according to the very peculiar histalp data, uber-homogeineized following a methodology impossible to find. I tried once to replicate it and got lost in circular references several times, only once I could track their methods to an obscure conference proceedings and never managed to get a copy of it. The climate data from the DWD or BEST contradicts their claims, at least for high altitude stations, which is what interest us here.
 
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Thu 27-11-14 10:26; edited 1 time in total
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Going back to the main topic, it looks good for the Southern and Southwestern Alps in the coming days. Snow line is a bit too high, but it will be a good snow cover at higher altitudes:
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Zero iso was at 2400m this morning in the French Alps. Around 30-40cm of snow depth has been lost over the last week at 2300 meters (Val Thorens village level).
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At least the snow cannons should get going next week ...
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@cota4000, ZAMG don't say it has been the hottest year on record. The title of the article is phrased as a question. And the first sentence says it could be, not that it is. So it seems a bit harsh to say it's "preposterous" for claiming something which it doesn't actually claim.
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@nozawaonsen, You've got a point. May be I am becoming a grumpy old man. Or may be I am a bit disappointed with zamg. I am not very convinced by their Histalp data set and initially they promised to publish the raw data, which they never did.
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