 Poster: A snowHead
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10+cm to 1300m tomorrow so NYD should be nice, but it's gonna be pretty miserable below 1800m on tue-wed, as the remnants of this flat WSW flow clear thru. Think that was the last update pre xmas, the emergence of flat flow, and without blocking to the north a southerly jet can produce these wet spells. What we need is mid atlantic amplification of the jet, as a surge in angular momentum ripples thru the rope creating meridonal mayhem instead of this mind numbing mediocrity.
We can rely now on the moon declination once again around month end.....look at how AO has peaked mid month and then dropped at each month end this season like clockwork moonolgy. So we have blocking once again to the north (-AO) in the troposphere, generally situated near Greenland for the foreseeable. Which is good.
Snow per GFS next 8 days
Strat winds are way below average, almost reaching SSW levels, but the main takeaway is the vortex is weak and forecast to stay weak during its usually strongest period. It normally peaks late Jan, so the longer we see it under pressure the better the odds for high lat blocking in the trop and cold outbreaks to mid latitudes. Basically a continuation of -AO is likely.
And a quick look at the mean charts for next Sat....tentative signs of greenland-iceland high, mid atlantic ridge, and N-NE flow into alps. Should see some cold Op runs cropping up.
  
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Sat 30-12-23 12:22; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| sussexmartlet wrote: |
| Snow&skifan wrote: |
| Austria looking good from next Saturday, in terms of ‘winter temperatures’ and snow? |
Temps looking good for Austria into Jan, I’m no expert but I can’t see much in the way of precipitation, few little nibbles but nothing major, let’s hope things change |
Bergfex forecasting 20cm for Schladming, MeteoBlue 30cm.
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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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"Mind numbing mediocrity" has produced lovely family ski conditions in the northern French Alps. Lots of sunshine, pistes in good nick above 1400. No wind. Could turn out to be one of the better weeks of the season.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Hurtle wrote: |
@sussexmartlet,
Too many trolls/unappreciative people for him in the end, I think. Sadly. |
Huge shame, but I can see what you mean.
I’ve been following this thread for longer than I can remember, I didn’t go to the Alps last year for the first time in 13 years (covid 2021 aside) so haven’t been here for a couple of years and it’s such a shame as this thread was such a fantastic resource in years gone by
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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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@sussexmartlet, hear hear
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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And Noza wasn't the first casualty.
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Remember Carled? And Brian?
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@Onelasttime1!, and @polo are filling the void nicely. People come and go.
Be interesting to see what happens today (and next few days) in different resorts & countries as this front comes through.
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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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@t44tomo, Too true …… Different mixture now which is great ….. although highly negative @whitegold posts are sometimes very truthful but also brutal …
Meanwhile love the new moon being bought into play
From what I can see cooler or average Jan and Feb incoming would be nice .
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After what seems like months of mobility across the North Atlantic and Europe, it looks like we might be heading into a blocked regime. This would result in high pressure over Iceland or northern Europe and low pressure in the Mediterranean. Not necessarily a snowy setup for the northern Alps, but possibly better chances of snow in more southern parts of the Alps. It would almost certainly bring significantly colder weather to the Alps. Most of the models support this change from about day 5 onwards, especially in the ensemble forecasts. See: https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=3005&model=ecm&var=202&run=0&lid=ENS&bw=1 for the ECMWF forecast for 2m temperature and precipitation at Lech.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Onelasttime1! even if there’s not much snow in the north it’d allow them to make artificial and get some more of the lower runs open to get people down the hill at the end of the day without downloading in gondolas!
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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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@t44tomo,
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@Onelasttime1!, and @polo are filling the void nicely. People come and go.
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True, I didn't mean to denigrate some excellent contributors.
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| Onelasttime1! wrote: |
| After what seems like months of mobility across the North Atlantic and Europe, it looks like we might be heading into a blocked regime. This would result in high pressure over Iceland or northern Europe and low pressure in the Mediterranean. Not necessarily a snowy setup for the northern Alps, but possibly better chances of snow in more southern parts of the Alps. It would almost certainly bring significantly colder weather to the Alps. Most of the models support this change from about day 5 onwards, especially in the ensemble forecasts. See: https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=3005&model=ecm&var=202&run=0&lid=ENS&bw=1 for the ECMWF forecast for 2m temperature and precipitation at Lech. |
Thanks very much for your very insightful posts - it's much appreciated. These blocking situations always seem to happen at this time of year / and in some instances they seem to persist for 6-8 weeks. Is there a particular reason for this trend?
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You know it makes sense.
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| Onelasttime1! wrote: |
| After what seems like months of mobility across the North Atlantic and Europe, it looks like we might be heading into a blocked regime. This would result in high pressure over Iceland or northern Europe and low pressure in the Mediterranean. Not necessarily a snowy setup for the northern Alps, but possibly better chances of snow in more southern parts of the Alps. It would almost certainly bring significantly colder weather to the Alps. Most of the models support this change from about day 5 onwards, especially in the ensemble forecasts. See: https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=3005&model=ecm&var=202&run=0&lid=ENS&bw=1 for the ECMWF forecast for 2m temperature and precipitation at Lech. |
Thanks very much for your very insightful posts - it's much appreciated. These blocking situations always seem to happen at this time of year / and in some instances they seem to persist for 6-8 weeks. Is there a particular reason for this trend?
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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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Foehn in Grenoble today which isn't doing much for the snowpack but there should be some light snow from 1200m altitude this afternoon. Looks like Monday and Wednesday will be the best days to hit the slopes in an unsettled week.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Decent snow fall in les arcs for the last couple of hours. Still coming down fairly hard.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Webcams in the PDS looking mighty snowy this afternoon, all the way down to Torgon too. Great improvement on this morning when those particular ones looked very bare.
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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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Three valleys getting the goods
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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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Chucking down with snow in la grand bornand at the moment..despite it being a low resort. Yippee 
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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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@Nickbrad, the road up to Les Gets from Taninges is at a standstill - snowline must be a bit lower than predicted.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Carnage on some of the roads around Châtel this afternoon/evening (PdS). Snow arrived around 1pm at maybe1500m and dropped to around 1100/1000m within 2 hours. Lovely big flakes.
It's a shame lots of the tourists clearly are not prepared for the road conditions.
Enjoying some of the recent posts. I have followed the thread for years. Could happily do without whitegolds posts as they are just full of hyperbolic rubbish most of the time. While I don't always disagree with some of the content it is typically written like some sort of tabloid headline.
From my perspective (I ski 7 days a week) it has been an okay start to the season here. Certainly better than last season to this point. Lots of happy tourists (too many as once again resorts below us are almost entirelt closed). Some amazing touring in early December.
Crucially for me piste conditions have been good (excluding yesterday when we had rock hard ice almost everywhere...)
Off piste has been really decent despite the warmer spell around a week ago. Even yesterday I enjoyed some good off piste. Although it was horrid and frozen solid below around 1600m. That meant for very little decent vertical in this area.
Base depths really not bad from around 1400m. Happy the forecast is fairly positive despite a high FL in the early days of Jan.
Should be a great morning tomorrow.
Thanks to those making interesting contributions about the weather!
Happy new year! 
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Yes snowing in Zermatt and Crans town centres.
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Snowing in town in Chamonix, settling but wet.
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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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Montgenevre getting a good top up too!
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Noza was the Best 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Noza was the Best
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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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I've never proposed marriage to Noza, though. I did to both Carled and Brian about 15 years ago.  Possibly slightly inebriated at the time...
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Noza is a huge loss but thank you to those who now contribute to this thread your efforts are hugely appreciated
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You know it makes sense.
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Happy New Year everyone - lets hope this one brings us lots of snow! And enough with the rain.
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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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Just looked at the wepowder map, nothing much incoming in this part of the world but it does suggest a "retour d'est" is on the cards. Looking at the charts its seems it is a GFS thing ECM not so much though still a suggestion of a Genoa low for the end of the week.
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Poster: A snowHead
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MeteoBlue forecasts for the coming 6 days:
Schladming 40cm new snowfall
St Anton 80cm
Selva 30cm
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Some snow but also pretty fearsome winds on the meteoblue forecast for the next three days.
Wonder what lifts will be open.
Edit bbc shows much calmer wind speeds.
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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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Wepowder being suitably tentative about the Southern Alps prospects for next weekend, its a battle of the models, who will win??
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Having had my very helpful lesson on what an omega block is, I think we may have one forecast? This is the jet stream forecast from MeteoBlue for next Monday and if I understood my lesson correctly this is a high pressure area sat over the north sea and a low over Italy? So this would bring cold air from the east - so sustained low temps but not a lot of snow?
How long do these things tend to hang about for @Onelasttime!?
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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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Light snow in les arcs this morning, when/will it turn to rain is the big question?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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@pmercer, marginal…. Meteo Tarentaise’s forecast
  Forecast for your disturbed episode of Tuesday and Wednesday January 2 and 3, 2024!
⬇️As announced a few days ago, a snowy pluvio episode will take place, it should last 2 days, in several phases:
Tuesday:
From the morning, the sky is totally covered, the peaks are sometimes quite crowded, and can drop some flakes under the thick cloud cover.
Lower, the sky remains totally covered, a few drops are possible or a few flakes above 1200m.
The first widespread rainfall should occur from 14/15h, and should affect us throughout the afternoon, evening and night from Tuesday to Wednesday, before a temporary relaxation.
Initially low intensity in the first part of disturbance, is expected to increase from 7/20h until early part of the night, as is the Westerly wind which will increase significantly in late afternoon, with some gusts to 65/70km/h from 1800/2000m, and up to 100km/h above 3000m of altitude.
The LPN will be in to early disturbance early tomorrow afternoon at 1600/1700m then the snowfall limit should rise to 1800m from late afternoon and evening, very locally up to 1900m at the highest low until 9pm, snow so very heavy for our stations.
Late evening and early night, the limit of snow drops to 1600/1700m then 1500/1600m overnight.
Over the whole day tomorrow until dawn on Wednesday, we expect a cumul in the valley of the order of 15/20mm.
Expect 10 to 15cm of heavy snow from 1800/2000m, locally up to 20 to 25cm above 2500m, snow that will remain very wet as well.
Wednesday:
A transition day to the program with a sky still well covered in the morning dropping possible flakes above 1500m and a few drops lower.
Next, the sky will be divided between many cloudy and timid clear passages, the latter should be more generous in the valley.
But during the afternoon, the clouds are back from everywhere, heralding a new deterioration ahead.
Indeed, the return of the rainfall is currently expected around 16/17h, slot to be confirmed in the next few hours.
This precipitation should then affect us in the evening and all night from Wednesday to Thursday, we'll have to wait for sunrise priori to see the last of the precipitation disappear, quick improvement behind with possible sun return!
Between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, an accumulation of the order of 10 to 20 mm is expected depending on sectors.
The LPN should be at the beginning of disturbance at 1500m then the rainfall limit should then descend again evening to 1400m then 1200m overnight.
We expect a cumulation of the order of 5 to 10cm above 1500m and 10 to 15cm above 1800m, locally 20cm.
A gust of westerly wind is also expected to be in place in the evening and night from Wednesday to Thursday, with gusts to 60/70km/h above 1800/2000m and near 100/110km/h above 3000m.
A new sequence so lively for this beginning of the week, several tracks will be launched in the course of tomorrow and Wednesday, thank you for reading, have a good evening everyone!
Roman VIVIANI by Météo Tarentaise
Our partner R’les Arcs la radio
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Still lightly snowing in Chamonix.
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| andy from embsay wrote: |
Having had my very helpful lesson on what an omega block is, I think we may have one forecast? This is the jet stream forecast from MeteoBlue for next Monday and if I understood my lesson correctly this is a high pressure area sat over the north sea and a low over Italy? So this would bring cold air from the east - so sustained low temps but not a lot of snow?
How long do these things tend to hang about for @Onelasttime!? |
Well done Andy - a gold star for understanding the principle of an Omega block. This one is still some way from being established, but should be there by the weekend. All the models support this, but there is variability in the location of the high pressure and the depth and location of the low over Italy. This can have a significant impact on the detail of the weather over the Alps, and the UK. Before then we still have residual mobility over the Alps with some relatively warm (2000m freezing level) air embedded in the weakish systems moving from west to east, so an annoying mixture of light rain or snow for many over the next 48 hours before colder air arrives.
An Omega block can be quite long lasting (over 10 days) on some occasions. There are signs in the longer term forecast of a renewed northward pulse of warm air over the western Atlantic and this would lead to a reinforcement of high pressure over the Iceland area and a second phase to the Omega block as cold air would spread southwards over Europe on the eastern side of the high pressure. A long way to go before this development, but definite signs of much colder weather over the Alps from the weekend onwards.
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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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From looking at BBC europe forecasts
7 days of light snow and light winds across much of the alps coming up in two phases:
- next couple of days fronts coming in from the west, so may bring rain low down and west
- then small low developing over Italy (just south of the alps) moving slowly east, this should bring N NE E winds, light snow and light wind and should bring snow even to the lower French resorts that have been getting wet stuff.
Continuing light snow & v cold in Scandinavia
Warm and wet in eastern europe
Pyranees looks a bit warm - edit -> but getting much colder
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Tue 2-01-24 14:14; edited 1 time in total
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Looking like temperatures will drop and getting a good bit of needed snow, hopefully it will stay true.
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FAQ
