The All New 19/20 Weather Outlook Thread

A snowHead

Good agreement that the next 5 days across the alps are going to be dry and sunny with light winds.......unlike the next 5 days here !

A snowHead

@kitenski, yes it’s hopeful, from Radstadt to Zermatt, snow is forecast, but 7 days out. Fingers crossed.

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Went to sleep worrying as resort reports were pointing to the pistes not holding up well and the lack of snow in the forecast playing on my mind. Woke to see the weekend now looking to carry quite a lot of precipitation. I'd rather ski in a white out than try and get down ice and rocks. Chamonix Meteo (not sure where they get their info from) is even hinting at a change come Friday. Fingers crossed.

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Today's GFS runs are mostly forecasting snowfall next weekend for the western Alps. But worth remembering that yesterday's runs were much less optimistic, so still far from certain. The focus of any precipitation is also yet to be determined - whether that be north, northwest, west or even southwest.

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UKMO, ICON and GEM below t+144 showing the wide range of possibilities still next weekend.
Recent verification stats at day 5 have top 3 as ECM, UKMO then GFS. At day 10 it's ECM, GEM, GFS. Haven't seen stats for ICON as it's relatively new, but I reckon it's top 3 or 4.

The following week (20th jan) mean anomalies have been showing high pressure building in again quickly across the UK / western europe. ECM (and GEM) are better with heights towards Iceland/Greenland, but GFS keeps them over central europe.
Note the nice charts from 00z ECM day 10 (22nd), but it has a bias to over amplify ridges...ie the pattern ends up flatter in reality.

Lot's of change going on in the background signals as well...strat PV set to slow, AO dropping back towards neutral, trop PV centre moves from Greenland to Siberia, and the MJO has been heading much quicker into the favoured areas such as 7-8-1.

12z GFS snow next weekend.....think that's a "36" and a "9" for Pyrenees, and not 369cm....but it's all fairly loose at that range anyway, especially considering the big differences in other models pressure charts

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That pattern shift for 17/18 January is really showing up clearly in the ensembles now.

The Arlberg

Chamonix

Cairngorm

Sestriere

Zermatt

Eastern Pyrenees

After all it is free

Meanwhile Met Office weather warnings out for much of UK early this week as Brendan blows in.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2020-01-13

18z keeps very similar snowfall pattern to GFS 12z.

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That. Will do. Nicely. Don’t change it.

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Morris is suggesting that the best hope of a decent snow forecast is a snow dance Very Happy

snow reports

or this

http://youtube.com/v/aJ7ohu0a074

You know it makes sense.

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

This is my season:
* Early december - Headed to Val D'isere. Plenty of snow, but also two days with full on sun
* Arrived in Ischgl saturday morning before new year, and it stopped snowing friday/saturday night, with about a meter some places. Got seven days of sun
* Arriving in Meribel on friday, with no snow for three weeks - But fri/sat plenty of snow

If my season keeps going like this, i will be one lucky motherf*cker!

A snowHead

A snowHead

@DanishRider, exceptional timing!

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a good summary of why the "apps" are flip/flopping on snow amounts/locations etc from here

https://wepowder.com/en/forum/topic/273401

Friday-Saturday-Sunday: finally a new storm
A new storm will finally find its way to the Alps. Fresh snow will fall from Friday till Sunday with a considerable temperature drop. But the key question is still: how much snow will fall and what will be the sweet spot? In the past 72 hours I have seen all sorts of model output passing by and the most recent runs still cause question marks. It is striking that no model currently has a consistent line in their output.

Conclusion: it can still go either way. That a storm will follow, that it will be colder and that snow will follow, can now be said with certainty. But where you want to be when the upcoming storm is far from saying. In short, hold your horses. And again when the snow starts falling, a warning is in place:

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After all it is free

I think the definition of ‘storm’ must be different in the Alps than the UK Laughing

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Finland having one of its driest, warmest winters of all time.

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You know it makes sense.

A summery for the medium to the long term outlook - rest of January

It looks quite certain that we will see some precipitation in the The Alps on Friday - Saturday. Most will likely fall in the weastern part. However, this will be very short lived and we will soon go back to a situation with high pressure. This seems to last at least for 5 days.

How long will this high pressure situation last?

If we take look at the last EC monthly it will be more or less like this for the next 4 weeks. Might see some activity though in the southern Alps. If we look at the GFS MJO forecast, we might see a change towards the end of January. The AO also now have some ensemble members that goes to negative territory and could indicate a change towards the end of the month. I personally like the GFS00 today. Towards the end of January it moves the high eastwards and a new high pressure builds up over UK creating a new pattern. This is of course speculation...

What seems pretty reliable at the moment is some precipitation in the beginning of the weekend and then we will see more days with high pressure.

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

Main issue at present continues to be the dry conditions. From 17/18 January there will be a shift with fresh snowfall primarily in the north and west. Although it will be followed by high pressure the set up is different and leads to lower temperatures, but still dry.

A snowHead

What a difference a year makes. This time last year in Eastern Austria it was hard tio find ski touring routes as the avalanche risk was just too high. Some ski resorts were even cut off beacause of the heavy snowfall. Went 'snowshoeing' at the weekend but the lack of snow meant I didn't even need to take the snowshoes off my backpack, crampons would have been more useful for the ice patches.

A snowHead

@DB, was just thinking that myself. Still, not unpleasant.

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There seems to be lots of squiggles (technical term) from 22nd onwards. Is that just uncertainty, or possible wetness (also technical term).

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Western alps I think, or Northern French alps. I forget the terminology. (Three valleys basically)

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@FIRSTOFTHEGIANTS, so the GFS runs are not in close agreement that far out, but are trending towards lower or about avg temps which would mean any precipitation should be white and not wet should it happen!

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@FIRSTOFTHEGIANTS, there is indeed a signal for more unsettled weather for later in the 06Z run (I would say more like the 24th onwards) for the NW Alps. However this is still a long way away so far from certain at this stage. It was also less of a feature in yesterday's runs. One to watch.

Here's the general setup as I understand it. At the end of this week a cold front will approach the NW Alps but it's still unclear how much precipitation it'll bring. There is also still doubt over where the sweet spot will be - probably one of NW Swiss / NW, W or SW French Alps, so I would be putting my money on the area between Geneva and Grenoble (3 Valleys would be included in this!). Less precipitation south / east of the Alpine ridge (but see later in this paragraph). Milder as the front comes in, but temperatures soon dropping to bring snow at all / most levels. There's also still a possibility of a retour d'est for the SW Italian Alps following on from this.

After the front passes there should be a couple of colder days. Maybe still some showers about but should be good for snowmaking at least.

In the medium term (next week) it looks like high pressure will rebuild across the UK and NW Europe. But some forecasts are suggesting that a further low pressure system may be able slip around the south side of this, which could bring heavy snow to the Pyrenees.

Then possibly that unsettled signal in the long term as you say, but very uncertain at this stage.

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@denfinella, ta, makes sense! What will be will be. Possibly some snow, possibly some snow making, definitely a nice holiday either way.

Help!!

The All New 19/20 Weather Outlook Thread

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