The all new 23/24 Weather Outlook Thread

A snowHead

+1 And i used to love the phots that he put on here pity he's not with us at the moment but who knows maybe he'll come back one day.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Niseko getting a few feet snowHead

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The blocked pattern is with us now. Good news for those impacted by the floods and saturated ground in the UK as we can expect a reasonable dry period. For the Alps, more light snow for a while, especially towards the Dolomites and on areas in the north of the Alps which are exposed to the mainly easterly wind. It will tend to dry up after 24 to 36 hours and stay cold, but as Atlantic air circulates around the high to the north of the UK and with heating via subsidence this will lead to a slow rise in temperature. The vertical temperature structure will become quite complex, with cold air in the valleys and warm air above. Some pretty good skiing conditions for the next week or so, though cold initially. Subsequent evolution (beyond next weekend) of the blocked pattern is uncertain. A major low will develop over the eastern USA next weekend, and how this impacts downstream will determine what happens over Europe. Most models want to retrogress (move westward) the block to allow very cold Arctic air to spread south over Northern Europe, this could lead to significant snowfall for parts of the UK and also over the Alps. We can expect certain news outlets to get quite excited. A minority solution suggests mobility from the west will erode the block bringing much milder conditions. An interesting spell ahead.

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great stuff, thanks @Onelasttime1! - I’ve been watching the block develop with interest since you explained what it is!

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@horgand, wepowder will keep you right

After all it is free

Great to see the thread back on subject ,major posters come can go as @pam w will confirm we have had several major contributors over the years the Subject has never been owned by anyone .
Much thanks so far this season to @polo, @Onelasttime1!, our resident pro who’s posts such as the one above are very much appreciated , to @davidof for local knowledge and all round experience and @whitegold who’s style although not to everyone’s liking brings some much needed reality to the party .

I'm only here for the weather. It was a safe bet predicting the Iceland-UK high would sink / subside after a few days as it does 90% of the time. It's what happens after that where the interest builds as any residual heights over UK/France, or even the med, will prevent arctic air reaching the alps. That low in the south atlantic / azores is likely going to be important regarding drawing down the cold or not. It may all end up too far east.

Here are some different models, different time stamps.....just showing the evolution into next weekend. Key timeframe is Sat-Sun, when the highs are now over western europe and the arctic lobe is decending from the NE.

By day 10, the 16th, GEM has the pattern too far west, and a bit too mobile, note the lack of greenland heights. ECM at least has an atlantic ridge. GFS is even better.....

Longer range output is still good......weak strat, split vortex etc....here's EC46 for week 15-22nd. Greenland high, NW flow into alps. It will change slightly each day, but it's been looking good for a while now.

So next weekend probably 50/50 right now for western alps to get decent cold/snow, slightly better for eastern end.....but the outlook overall is still great into mid month.

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Just adding my gratitude for @polo, @Onelasttime1!, and the other knowledgeable contributors in this thread. Its been a pre trip ritual for longer than I would like to admit and while forecasting sites have improved massively over that time, you can't really get the same anywhere else.

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@element, +1

My 2c - I'm a prolific poster on the ski.com.au forums and a former moderator.

The forum owners quickly realised how important the weather threads are: https://www.ski.com.au/xf/forums/alpine-snow.16/

They are possibly the most valuable threads on the forum, and as such they are heavily moderated.

Absolutely zero trolling is allowed, low effort posts are not allowed, 'is it going to snow in 3 months time at 2pm when I am going skiing' posts are not allowed, hopecasts are not allowed etc etc

This leaves a high quality technical weather discussion from a number of valued and educated posters.

I peruse this thread for about a month a year in the leadup to & during my annual Europe trip, for which I leave next Friday, and I've always thought that this forum could do well to emulate the ski.com.au

You know it makes sense.

@polo, would you say it’s a safe bet the snows is going to stick around for a while with the odd sunny day? Looking to go 15-20th Jan to 3 valleys but can change the date if poor visibility is likely.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

@Chamwow, interesting site that, more like netweather.tv in the UK, which is strictly moderated, plenty of pro's amongst the thousands of knowledgable amateurs. Their latest model outlook thread is already on page 248, after just 7 days, so every run from every model is micro analysed. If 'merchant banker' is a euphemism for amateur forecasters wink

then that place is the Goldman Sachs of Meteorology.

@Joehdhchdhd, yes snow will be absolutely fine, 15-20th is likely to see change from snow to sunshine, so improving viz if the current charts are close.

Here's a smorgasbord of synoptics showing the patterns from 14-15th, UKMO (14th), ICON (14th), GFS (15th), GEM, JMA, ECM

The azores low is causing the expected phasing chaos....we need an almost perfect sync to hit the bullseye, just far enough east to draw the arctic low across and supress south euro heights blah blah blah. It's a cliche, but this is high risk high reward. JMA is too far west, bringing mild air into the mix, while ECM (last chart) is keeping the low separate, but also too far west which blow's up heights over France and we get a flabby nordstau.
GEM best of the overnight runs.

Here are the 3 means at day 10, the 17th. Good ongoing agreement for GH / euro low, ECM is slighlty slower than the others with retrogression but it still gets there. EC46 has shifted almost too far NW....so it could be a short lived snow window (14-17th) before high pressure re-establishes. That's my best guess for now.....will change no doubt at that range.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Any Japan forecast Very Happy

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@Gored, there's one on the above link

https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/the-japanese-snow-season-2023-2024-weather.93891/

And there's a whole tutorial thread by local Nozawaman, don't want to trigger any further noztalgia but like the great man himself, they know what they are talking about
https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/snow-forecasting-tutorial-for-japan.63512/

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@polo,

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@polo, If 'merchant banker' is a euphemism for amateur forecasters wink then that place is the Goldman Sachs of Meteorology.

Is the quote of the year!

After all it is free

The ignore button is good as long as people don’t quote.

Next Tuesday, Wednesday looks like something is brewing as POLO has mentioned.

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@Alpinebear, Mid month is brewing on a slow boil, eastern end favoured for the first hit, maybe Sunday 14th....hopefully the pattern is far enough west by mon-tues to have more impact west and south. Bw, I don't ignore anyone, I am against censorship, maybe pro light thread moderation, but firmly anti cyclone. Well it depends where they are coming from, you know, the cyclones.

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Hey @polo - the anomalies charts you posted - is that pressure differential? So blue = low pressure area, red = high?

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A lot of snow forecast on GEM for a swathe of France, up to 35cm in a belt from Brittany to Alsace.

Predictably the sea keeping SE England boringly mild by comparison.

@andy from embsay, yes, but also look at the isobar source, a low pressure anomaly is generally good, but it needs to be fed cold air, so black lines coming from the N/NW/NE rather than W/SW, running anti clockwise around the cyclone (blue low)

You know it makes sense.

@polo, So that’s the winds going anti-clockwise round the low? In the charts above the weather coming from NW across the alps?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Curious that this page of the thread is mourning the loss of a valued member, but also reactions to my post saying 'everything's fine......'

A snowHead

@andy from embsay, yes air source, wind, weather flow, jet stream, generally anti clockwise around low. Note the south Atlantic low is also feeding warm SW air towards the western alps in those charts. So it’s a mix in my view.

Btw am always open to correction from others, as a complete amateur, I’d like to know when I’m wrong, and then hopefully learn something.

A snowHead

Gotcha @polo - cheers!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Winter finally showed up on the US West Coast. More inbound for a large swath of the West Coast mountain ranges and into the intermountain West. Felt good to get out and ski powder for the first time in a long time. Series of storms inbound from tomorrow into the weekend. Some areas will see over a meter of snow accumulation at higher elevations over the next 7 days.

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Puked down in Japan yesterday.
over 60cm in Niseko & it's still dumping it down now!

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Hi All,

I am somewhat familiar with weather forecasting, having been on the netweather site for about 10 years - not really posting, simply observing.

I am off to Avoriaz 18-23rd jan, I know things are a little unreliable when forecasting this far out but I am wondering if anybody has some insight on whether the expected precipitation will be snow or rain around those dates.

It looks like a northerly is heading into the UK and a warm sector from the NW is bringing percip across the continent and therefore warmer temperatures.

Apple weather forecast is saying rain and 6c in Avoriaz.

if it does end up being rain - what will that mean for our trip?

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@Astontech, if it’s 6º in Avoriaz and there is precipitation you’re going to get wet and the snow will be soggy - it’ll be raining pretty much everywhere. But I’d lay odds on that being wrong - that is (a) a long way away and (b) would seem to be a single run of a single model. Choose a different weather app (MeteoSki, for example) and you’ll see much lower temperatures.

If you look at the ensembles (which give lots of different model outputs with slightly adjusted variables) you’ll see the lines are all over the place 10 days out (so little consistency) - so far too early to say. In fact the average (white line) of the outputs is about seasonal average.

https://www.wetterzentrale.de/en/show_diagrams.php?geoid=42263&model=gfs&var=201&run=00&lid=ENS&bw=1

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Tbh@Astontech I’m not sure on either q! My main point is that at 10-15 days out a small variation in the input variables can make a big difference.

Grey weather continuing at the start of the week in the French mountains but with just a few flakes of snow. Return to Sun on Thursday. The storm brought about 30 to 50cm of snow at 1500m. A nice freshen up for the hard pistes that had developed over New Year but not a game changer for many lower resorts which are still struggling for snow and for mid mountain off piste where the base is uneven / non existent under trees.

It is snowing down to sea level today. Should bring some communting fun this evening.

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The all new 23/24 Weather Outlook Thread

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