 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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The trend from mid November (FI) looks to be cooling and if the diurnal range continues that would be good for snow making.
In the eastern alps getting the snow down where it’s needed is probably more important than hoping for a natural snowfall. Avoiding rain and gales is the key there. 
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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.
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@polo, ‘Long way to go, but the trend has been good up to now’ is my key takeout, and welcome too 
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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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@BobinCH, how's Siberia looking ?
I can't remember what I looked at when I went, but there again it was such a localised microclimate, though just had a Google and found them.
Broad picture
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/@2016590/ext
and for where we went
https://www.accuweather.com/en/ru/luzhba/2513923/winter-weather-forecast/2513923
I was due to return to Serre Che this coming weekend but will delay as stuff to do and forecast not too inspiring when I think back to how conditions were in 2019 in November!!
Just had a look at my diary
2020 UK
2019 first ski-tour 6th November
2018 3rd November and Siberia from 18th Nov
2017 21st November
2016 30th December !!!!!! though looked like we were skiing piste early December, so canon snow?
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Hello everyone. Would like to know what the forecast for cervinia look like for the next 2-3 weeks, any chance of some major snow dump? (Low-mid mountain and village). Dont know how to read graphs myself, so i could use your help. Thanks in advance! 
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@Idb1213, you would have to email Bruce Almighty (aka Jim Carrey) to know with certainty weather 2-3 weeks ahead
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@Idb1213, I suggest looking at historical records as your best bet. Ski Club of GB (sorry snowheads)had good data last time I looked.
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@twoodwar, I know it's in jest to some degree, but please don't feel the need to apologise.
The whole point of snowHeads is to give each other the best advice possible so I'm all for recommending the Tea Club for its strengths.
(I just wouldn't be quick to recommend it for its overall chuminess and propensity to play nicely with others  )
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| admin wrote: |
@twoodwar, I know it's in jest to some degree, but please don't feel the need to apologise.
The whole point of snowHeads is to give each other the best advice possible so I'm all for recommending the Tea Club for its strengths.
(I just wouldn't be quick to recommend it for its overall chuminess and propensity to play nicely with others ) |
I've found it quite useful as a solo skier in Obergurgl, Mayrhofen and Ischgl. I have no problem finding my own way round, but nice to ski with some others sometimes.
But in Obergurgl they can be very slow; I won't be with them every day this year, nor in Zell and See later as I know Zell and Saalbach perfectly well
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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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@twoodwar, Thanks.. for some reason they miss out month of november, (except for the last week)..
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You know it makes sense.
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@Idb1213, 2 to 3 days. Even then the actual snowfall prediction is a lottery. It can vary hugely from one peak / valley to the next. 2-3 weeks is impossible to predict. Cervinia is high and also has the Zermatt glacier option so you’re as safe as you can be.
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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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| BobinCH wrote: |
| @Idb1213, 2 to 3 days. Even then the actual snowfall prediction is a lottery. It can vary hugely from one peak / valley to the next. 2-3 weeks is impossible to predict. Cervinia is high and also has the Zermatt glacier option so you’re as safe as you can be. |
Yeah for that matter. Problem is im traveling with beginners and childs, so we we're kinda hoping for low mountain pistes to be open by then. Will be fine, im keeping positive vibes
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Poster: A snowHead
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This is Verbier. There is a specific GFS coordinate for Zermatt but I don’t have it
Top line is temperature. Red line is the historical average. As you can see temps are trending down. The closer the lines the more reliable the forecast hence 2 day forecast much more reliable than 20 days. Bottom line is the precipitation. Looks like a small disturbance this weekend but apart from that not much in the forecast. But it changes on a daily basis so really not much point in looking until you get a few days out, not that it stops us…
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Idb1213, any forecasts longer than a few days have an element of crystal ball gazing. General trends can be discerned but it is difficult to go from that to forecasts for particular places as so many variables involved. If you prefer a map rather than graphs have a look at Wxcharts, this example is the winter forecast based on the GFS data. It shows forecast lying snow, in purple, and forecast snow, in white, and rain, in blue. For the area around Zermatt you can see the suggestion is some snow this weekend but then generally dry weather for the whole of the alps but with light general snow at the end of the forecast period (14 days). Take the last bit with a large pinch of salt. You can select a particular location (shown by red dot on the map) and the details are displayed on the right hand side. The suggestion for the Zermatt area is around 30cm snow depth (I assume at altitude not village level) for the entire period, unlikely to be powder heaven. It does suggest no big wind storms which is a positive for Zermatt in that the link to Cervinia is likely to be open but there are many local factors so a general forecast is not to be relied upon for that.
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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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Thanks guys! @munich_irish, ive checked the map, i can see that its pretty dry. But what are the chances that there will be a major change of plans, like in shape of a snow storm by next week? Even though it is not that accurate it does show the general trend, so it couldnt get snowy all of the sudden can it? And when you said the suggestion is around 30cm for area of zermat you meant for this weekend?
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It's definitely possible to forecast large scale pressure patterns 10 days out, not always, but depending on the pattern, some background signals and cross model agreement, I reckon you can be 70-80% accurate. The recent widespread snowfall on 3-4th Nov being a good example of a (relatively) high confidence build up.
The snowfall this weekend is at the other end of the scale. A low just off newfoundland is making it's way across the atlantic, thru NI/UK by friday and then rather than the usual exit into the north sea it takes a 90degree right hand turn and drops down the east coast of Uk and straight over the alps to phase with low pressure already in the med.
So a strange route to take, hardly any model agreement in the build up, poor background set up (NAO, AO, strat etc)....and it's quite a small area of low pressure, so a very small window for accuracy.
Now that we are only 3-4 days away though we can start to see a more reliable picture in terms of snowfall for the alps, and looking across 6-7 different weather models it looks like the southern alps will do well, especially along the French - Italian border, ie the south west.
Here's a link to compare the various models, you can zoom in to different areas, but the actual numbers aren't that reliable yet, you're just looking for ballparks / rough estimates
https://meteologix.com/fr/model-charts/german/france/accumulated-precipitation/20211116-1800z.html
Looking beyond this weekend, still looks like a Scandi high and very cold air east of Austria. Then odds are for a flatter more zonal westerly period, which hopefully transitions more N/NW in the last 3rd of Nov. But to be honest there is no clear signal for that yet on the day 10 mean anomalies.
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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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@polo, just to be sure, that means there is nothing major coming at the next 10-12 days (besides that weekend,which is not that big anyways), and we can predict 10-12 days ahead roughly what its gonna look like?(although not exactly), but if the forecasts doesn’t show anything for the next 12 days, it can’t come out of the blue.( they can only get wrong the amount,but not a large scale trend),Correct?
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| Idb1213 wrote: |
| @polo, just to be sure, ...... |
@Idb1213, I'd be cautious about looking past 5 days to be honest, especially if you're using it to plan in any way. We've all seen big dumps forecast for 7-10 days out suddenly disappear off the radars as the days get closer, and vice versa.
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@Idb1213, it's just a sliding scale of confidence....with a bit of chart reading one can be reasonably confident of the general pattern a week or even 10 days away. But that's on a very broad scale, so even if low pressure is forecast over the alps 8-10 days away (and supported and repeated by the average of all available output), it's still too far to be able to make a call on snow. The final position of the low pressure, if it were to materialize, will have a huge impact on south / north / east / west sections of the alps. Especially in terms of the freezing level...a small shift in the trajectory of the flow can greatly affect temperature and precipitation. But when it's 4-5 days away you can make a good guess.
So right now the day 10 charts (20th Nov) are a sea of high pressure, probably centred near Ire, but pretty broadly over europe too. This doesn't rule out a quickly moving low rolling in around that date, it just doesn't look likely or significant right now. Looks like pretty average temps and largely dry. That can change over the next few days, but the more model runs that repeat it, the more likely it is to be accurate.
Something can always come out of the blue, even within 4-5 day range....ie this weekends low could easily have disappeared altogether and looked a long shot even 2 days ago.
So there's always hope, like beyond the 20th some signals such as the AO Index are suggesting a change for the better. Anything further out I'm afraid is beyond my control 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@Idb1213, lets say there is an 80% chance that the forecast is broadly correct for 10 days out, in this case stable high pressure type weather over central Europe. For the remaining 20% lets say there is a 10% chance of more variable but mild weather, a 9.9% chance of more variable but cold weather (which would give some snow) and a 0.1% chance of snowmeggedon. For 800 times out of a thousand there will hardly be a snowflake to be seen. If you keep your fingers and everything else crossed there might be some snow (will vary from place to place) and a 1 in a thousand chance of having to dig your car out. These numbers might not be correct but I am sure you can see the drift.
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@denfinella, I've got just as much chance as all the spirits in the sky do at predicting the weather. Fact.
In any case, the GFS 12z show's the long term plan is back on track, albeit 300 hours away....just need to see some consistency now and we'll be on another goose chase.
Put this one in the single digit percentile for now
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Just for reference, here are the day 10 mean anomaly charts for the 20th Nov from ECM, GEM and GFS.
What can you tell from this.....first there is some disagreement re. the centre of high pressure, ECM is best with the centre of the high much further out in the atlantic (as opposed to mainland europe).
Even still, there is a strong signal for above average pressure across central and western europe, with low pressure to the north.
The jet stream (weather flow) is likely to travel from norway to ukraine (broad sense), so too far east of the alps.....it tends to travel between the pressure zones, anticlockwise around the low.
It's a pretty good pattern to launch some N/NW flow into alps in the following days, just need those red blobs to pull out further west into the atlantic and open up the nordstau gates.
...one other caveat with charts that far out, the pattern could well be 'right' but have the precise timing out by 24 hours either way. So when i say 80% accurate, it's with a wide confidence interval timestamp wise
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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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Big dump for La Plagne on Monday has just appeared literally out of nowhere on Bergfex! Is that reflected in the models?
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Well of course it will because it comes from one of the models!*
Others can explain which one. I know everyone has their favourite easy-to-understand snow forecaster; in the past I have found Bergfex most reliable.
(*read back on this thread from early on in the week and you will see that there was a fairly large variation in outcomes for this weekend- from virtually nothing to a fair amount of snow; both outcomes had something happening this weekend - and a bit colder next week as the last few days have been rather warm)
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You know it makes sense.
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Still looking like a significant snowfall this weekend for southern alps, notable SW.....article on WePowder about Retour d'Est.
GFS 00z view of next 4 days, so getting into the reliable zone....as far as snowfall can ever be reliable.
Next week there have been some Op runs showing a quickly moving low sweeping the north and or eastern alps around 18-19th, but there's no consistency or strong signal so far.
The 20th Nov charts have repeated what there were showing above, a sea of high pressure from mid atlantic to central europe, pushing any low pressure too far east.
The orange and blue ECM46 weekly charts a few posts above have been a letdown....they updated last night and week 2 (15-22nd) chart has flipped to high pressure as well. it's a different model to the normal ECM charts we use, but hard to have much faith in the longer range (weeks 3-6) output if it can fail so badly on just week 2.
The positives I can see is that high pressure is still slowly expected to retreat west on the GFS and GEM extended range (ie Nov 22-27th), but this is obviously way to far to get excited about, and the high never strays too far from the UK.
The AO Index heading south into the last 3rd of Nov still looks likely, implying northern blocking (high pressure at high lattitude), and a better chance of some low pressure reaching further south (ie better chance for snow).
---and a good new article here explaining the jet stream and polar vortex influence, in mostly non technical language.
https://wepowder.com/en/forum/topic/281467
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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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@Handy Turnip, Bergfex uses ECM I believe. That increase on Monday is part of the weekend system....it's possible, but a long shot as the weather is coming up from the SE side so it would have to be spill over across the main ridge. Those situations I've found are less reliable than a storm coming from the W/NW....but yeah you never know.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Thanks @polo, @buchanan101, makes sense, much appreciated. I think I remember reading a while ago that bergfex uses "ZAMG" which is based on ECM.
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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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@BobinCH, what’s the URL for the GFS graph pls?
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ECM 12z Op at day 10. Time for some Hail Mary's
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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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Horray hopefully cold temps and weather to follow.
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Same in the haute maurienne, but temperatures are still quite high. In bonneval-sur-arc (~1850m) the snow in the village doesn't look convincing, in bessans (~1750m) there's a packet of translucent slush, and in val cenis (~1500m) its just raining.
All the webcams on the mountains are in a whiteout though, will be interesting to see them tomorrow when visibility returns.
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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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@Oldandbrittle, what height are you at?
That Pragelato webcam is at the base, ski du fond, so presume that's 1,500m
And I know that in Serre Che today at that altitude it's raining hard, and the cams altitude are showing snow, but the tin roofs are wet, so still not that cold.
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I'm at about 100m asl in a different country, I just like it there so I'm watching webcams and following Facebook and Instagram accounts... 
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FAQ
