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Weather Outlook Thread

 brian
brian
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So it's looking increasingly likely that a dump is coming to the alps from the West around about Wednesday/Thursday next week. Snowiest bits at the moment look like southern France and Italy. Freezing level could well be an issue, the snow/rain line looks likely to be around 1800m or so, but could be a bit higher, especially as the rain/snow arrives. Potential for more snow to lower levels following on next weekend.

Closer to home, interesting for Scotland over the weekend and early next week. I think it's just not quite cold enough yet for signficant snow, but might just fill in some of the higher runs. Would be an excellent weather pattern to see in mid-December though Very Happy
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Quote:

the snow/rain line looks likely to be around 1800m or so


Definately need that to drop a touch - presumably there is still a chance of that
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I understood that part of the problem for resorts last year was that the ground temp was never brought down and so the small amounts of valley level snow kept melting. Surely the dumps this week in e.g the Tirol will help with freezing the ground, and create good bases higher up which shoudl last up until early april.
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 brian
brian
Guest
Mattmulkeen, yes, we're still talking 5-6 days away, plenty of time for dramatic changes never mind subtle ones. The output the models are throwing out for next week is pretty unusual to say the least, especially for this time of year.

killian, you really want the ground to be cold before the snow falls on it. If it's warm-ish then the snow acts like a blanket and stops the ground freezing really hard so when a thaw comes, the snow thaws from the top and bottom at the same time.
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 brian
brian
Guest
The good news - precipitation coming, Tuesday onwards Very Happy

The bad news - a foehn wind. Sad

Above 2000m should be fairly safe I think, will probably rain for a time below that, especially if you are on the northern side of the alps.
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I don't see the foehn as being neccessarily particularly bad news - a bit of consolidation would help us for when winter-proper starts. Nice Scottish boilerplate...
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 brian
brian
Guest
paulmck, I think the good news outweighs the bad, the important thing at this stage is to build a really good base up high, get all the rocks filled in, so I can get some decent o/p action for my December weekend wink The grassy lower runs don't take much covering so them coming and going isn't that much of a worry, I don't think.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
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IT has been quite entertaining wathcing the various forecasts change everytime they update.

brian, , in your opinion, is this fairly well set now? Or will the entertainment continue if I keep watching the forecasts? Toofy Grin
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GFS at Midnight has got the temps dropping towards the end of the week - hope that stays that way through the other runs!

Any thoughts?
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brian, where are you going - anywhere nice?!
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The Chamonix people are forecasting a snow/rain limit of 1800 m. They have been pretty accurate so far this season.
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a warmer system is not bad news really, should stop any depth hoar forming - and consolidate the snowpack for safer off piste later in the season snowHead
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norris, Us ON pisters would like it to stay cold thank you very much, and there are more of us. Toofy Grin
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 brian
brian
Guest
afcbtim, it looks pretty well set until Friday, then it should cool down a bit, but will it and by how much ?

paulmck, the val d'Anniviers in Switzerland. Just picked up flights for the 13-17 December at the weekend, £35pp. Very Happy
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
there is suppose to be more snow in the southern and french alps in the next three days espeically wednesday night.
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Poster: A snowHead
Sorry, goldfish like memory - where do I click on the Wetterzentrale website to get the GFS chart again?
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BGA, http://www.wetterzentrale.de/topkarten/fsavneur.html

is where I navigate from
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 brian
brian
Guest
Looking fairly probable that the weekend will see a return to cooler temps, in fact a fair bit of confidence in a pretty cold spell next week.

The next few days are a bit of a forecasting nightmare. How well will the cool air hang on ? How's the local topography for foehn effect ? In general, it still looks best along the southern side of the alps, where it should be coolest and snowiest. 50cm+ is well on the cards for most of the French alps, southern Switzerland and Italy. Snow line in the 1500-2000m range.
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Chamonix forecast for Thursday..........

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 22
Rainy - getting colder
SKY CONDITIONS (cloud - sunshine) : overcast - period of sunshine close to 0%.
PRECIPITATIONS : moderate - rain-snow limit towards 1800 m, dropping towards 1400 m - expected snowfall towards 2000 m : 40-60 cm.
WIND - aloft : SW strong - decreasing.
TEMPERATURE : dropping.

Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile
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 brian
brian
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norris, you've got to think if 40-60cm is "moderate", what's heavy going to be like Puzzled Shocked Cool


Consensus building nicely for the weather to take a northerly turn early next week, reintroducing cold weather right across the alps (and hopefully even more snow, perhaps not massive amounts but back down to low levels). Very Happy
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Could this be an epic winter! The start is certainly going to be good snowHead
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
brian wrote:
Consensus building nicely for the weather to take a northerly turn early next week, reintroducing cold weather right across the alps (and hopefully even more snow, perhaps not massive amounts but back down to low levels). Very Happy

Excellent! More forecasts like this please. Looks like my trip to Val d'Isere at the beginning of December should be OK for snow, at least on the upper slopes Smile
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rob@rar,

Metcheck is now showing a drop in temps over the weekend with some snow and freezing to low levels on the horizon for early next week snowHead snowHead
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gwaelod wrote:
rob@rar,

Metcheck is now showing a drop in temps over the weekend with some snow and freezing to low levels on the horizon for early next week snowHead snowHead

That's good, although that far out the forecast tends to be in the realm of Fantasy Island. But I suppose it's better than showing soaring temps...
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Sad

Watching the snow wash away around alpe dhuez on the web cam they only just switched on!

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The forecast for cold and snow over the next few days after

More turbulent than supporting Leeds!
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Mattmulkeen, dont worry, it sounded like it was raining all night long here, but it is now absolutely dumping its bottom off!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
snowangel., good to hear it!!!
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Quote:

dumping its bottom off!


beautiful! Very Happy
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 brian
brian
Guest
Oh well, I suppose I can claim some credit for guessing the snowiest bits would be southern France and Italy but I was rather hoping a bit more snow would sneak its way into the valais. Ho hum.

The outlook is progressively colder from now through until Monday, with Austria maybe catching a modest bit of snowfall, drying up elsewhere. High pressure then building over the alps and temperatures rising to around average for the time of year, with sunny days and clear, frosty nights.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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brian,

Why does the GFS forecast (Green Line?) seem to always run just above all the variants? I would have thought, based on probability it would run near the grey line.

Puzzled

Cheers

Matt
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 Poster: A snowHead
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GFS runs look interesting for next weekend - snow forecast predicting heavy snow from Friday night for Alpe D'H etc

Any thoughts?

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Mattmulkeen, probably too early to know for next weekend for sure!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
All looks a bit warm, really.
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pam w, CHamonix met forecasting colder week on way...mayeb a wee disturbance around the weekend...doigts croisses
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Quote:

Why does the GFS forecast (Green Line?) seem to always run just above all the variants? I would have thought, based on probability it would run near the grey line.


That's an excellent question and one that has been puzzling me for sometime. In all honesty I can understand (I think) why it doesn;t track the grey line as that is simply the median of all runs (or have I got that wrong?) but what I can't understand is why it isn't more similar to the thick blue line as I was under the impression that green was a more accurate representation of the blue line? (Sincere apologies if I've completely got that wrong). Hopefully brian can put me/us right?! Confused
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afaik the grey line is the average of all the others. as far as teh blue/green line relationship goes i'm in the same boat - i asked the question in the GFS for dummies beginners guide thread and got no reply...... anyone?
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 brian
brian
Guest
Mattmulkeen, awksquawk, rogg, this is from the horse's mouth:

NCEP wrote:

1. T382L64 high resolution control out to 7 days, after which this run gets truncated and is run out to 16 days at a T126L64 resolution
2. T126L28 control that is started with a truncated T382L64 analysis, run out to 16 days.
3. 20 perturbed forecasts each run out to 16 days at T126L28.


So 1. is the green line (the operational) and is run at higher resolution for the first 180 hours
2. is the blue line (the control)
3. are the thin coloured lines (the ensemble members)

The grey line is the average (mean) of the ensemble members.

Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure what x and y mean in TxxxLyy numbers but I'll try and find out.
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 brian
brian
Guest
The fine weather of the middle part of this week looks set to break down on Friday with fronts from the atlantic. Western end of the alps looks set for snow (with luck a good pasting). Freezing level around 2000m Friday night, dropping to around 1500m on Saturday and possibly a little lower on Sunday.

Very uncertain outlook after that and I expect a few changes. ECM throws up a nice looking atlantic ridge pulling in colder air across Europe but HP stays flatter on GFS with milder south westerlies.
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brian, so:

1) green line - this is what they think might happen - but could go a bit amiss. you'd stick a few quid on it at longer odds.
2) the blue line roughly the same, but at lower resolution and seems to be added in as more of a checking mechanism for the green output.
3) the grey line is the average of all the other runs, which have slightly 'corrupted' input data, just to see what happens if things change a bit - so that might be a good long term "each way" sort of a bet.

would that sound right?
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 brian
brian
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rogg, yep, think so. Although the "corruptions" in 3 are within the accuracy of the measurements, I think. So it's sort of: if we got the input data just a little bit wrong what would happen ?
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