 Poster: A snowHead
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39cm fell last night and today with it still snowing heavily now and expected too last well into tomorrow, the temperature is expected too rise slightly tomorrow and drop soon afterwards, all in all Monterosa is seemingly promising 
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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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Interesting piece from Brian Glaze on ECM (TWO Buzz)
"Incredible consistency from ECM
Posted Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:13:47
ECM is the European medium Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) range weather forecasting model. It runs twice each day and is usually considered the best and most reliable NWP model currently available. Run after run during the last few days it has persisted in modelling an incredibly stable and well positioned high pressure area over Greenland. Some of the other NWP models have been varying the details from run to run, but not ECM. What does this suggest? My guess is that is showing high confidence in the solution, because the starting data in each run is varying, but the modelled outcome is virtual identical. This is really exciting stuff for anyone interested in the weather. Taken at face value this suggests to me that we’re looking at the possibility of the cold spell in the UK going into a second week, and running into December.
PS: To those who say this is a common pattern with La Nina conditions I’m not buying. A well developed Greenland block during the winter months is never a common pattern."
And here is a really very interesting ECM chart showing potentially serious Arctic air flowing south over Europein ten days time...
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Hmm. Cold is all very well, but what about precipitation? Dry autumns have been a problem for several recent years.
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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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pam w, yes that's something to keep an eye on... If you look back over the LRFs the closest thing to a theme was "cold and dry."
For example the chart below looks rather dry to me...
LRFs of course don't count for much now that we are closing with winter, but it was certainly a noticeable trend.
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Wed 17-11-10 10:27; edited 2 times in total
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brian
brian
Guest
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pam w, I must admit, in terms of the alps, I'd take precipitation over cold every time. Sure, low level rain is a bit annoying, but it's better than a top to bottom snow drought. Different in Scotland, where the proximity to the (still fairly warm) sea means that showers are nearly always on the cards for somewhere.
The medium term outlook is very similar to late December/early January last year, which explains the excitement of English based snow chasers.
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Heavy precipitation warning out for Kärnten today - Carinthia for those non-German/Austrian speakers.
There are some interesting temperatures in the offing for the next 16 days which will finally freeze the ground at long last! Some nice mixtures for the eastern Alps where the Arctic air mixes with the warmer moist air from the Mediterranean Depressions. Looking good for a normal start to the winter in other words.
Interesting for me to notice that this pattern currently follows that for the beginning of the 2005/2006 season. We can but hope 
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hopefully not an early season like 2006/07 - no snow until mid Jan 
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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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Samerberg Sue, Good point - I went to the PdeS that year in late Jan and the resort was closed up until 2 days before we went, but that's an awful long way from you.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
hopefully not an early season like 2006/07 - no snow until mid Jan
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we arrived to a fairly dismal sight on 31 December (though all runs to resort were open they'd had to shove the stuff from the mountain and it looked hideous. But we had excellent snowfall overnight - 1 Jan was great and cover remained good, if not great, IIRC. Of course the PdS main resorts are pretty low - bit of a gamble early on (as is anywhere, really - and those very dry autumns left high altitudes with much less snow cover than average, though lower altitudes were about average - cover was much the same top to bottom, whereas big autumn precipitation with a freezing level at, say, 2000m will get the higher bits nicely covered).
I don't know of any evidence that if two winters look a bit similar in mid November there is a higher than random likelihood that they'll continue to be similar. Weather just tends to confound any such search for predictability! You don't have to look at the distance between the PDS and Austria, either, to find big differences. There are big differences between areas even in the western Alps, sometimes between two adjoining valleys. The Beaufortain, for example, has consistently better snow depths than similar altitudes in the Tarentaise. 
Cold and dry is better than warm and dry, at any rate. At least they can blow snow. But some cold and wet would be better. Good for Carinthia if it dumps there - the precipitation all looks a bit uncertain at the moment.
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brian
brian
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brian, mmm, nice.
Any views on Tignes from 5 December? 
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You know it makes sense.
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05/06 I remember being brutally cold in Austria, heavy snow in Vienna from end of November, mid day highs of around -10c in January and deep snow in Grinzing till Spring. And that wasn't in the mountains...
Anyway 06z outlook remains deep cold around end of November and a little bit more precipitation into the mix too. Good. 
A number of ensembles towards the far end of the run are looking for ways out of the cold, but the mean is still looking at cold options. So... Cold.
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brian
brian
Guest
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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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Anyone know how tall that 'forecasting' flower ended up being this year?
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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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This evening's headline forecast for the end of November... C O L D.
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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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Here is a bit more in the way of thoughts...
The overall pattern in all the models for a cold outlook continues. How long it will last is less clear though, the spread on the GFS ensembles in the Alps is tight up to about Thursday 25 November by which time the freezing level would be somewhere between sea level to 800m...
At that point the spread opens up quite a bit and the ensembles split, the mean would keep things cold with freezing level at around 750m for much of the rest of the run, the operational takes a bunch of ensembles colder (very cold in Austria), the control takes the ensembles above average.
There are no obvious spikes of precipitation on GFS, though there does seem to be a small amount around, more so in the south and west...
ECM takes things colder still...
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| Quote: |
There are no obvious spikes of precipitation on GFS
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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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nice map! Let's have those on a regular basis please
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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The cold just keeps coming.
GFS this evening pushes back against today's earlier runs which saw temperatures possibly rising from deep lows in early December and instead keeps going... And though it is nothing amazing it gently increases the likely amount of precipitation. What snow that does fall should certainly be falling on welcoming frozen ground...
Interestingly ECM pulls the core of the cold away from the east and puts it closer to the UK.
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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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| nozawaonsen wrote: |
The cold just keeps coming.
GFS this evening pushes back against today's earlier runs which saw temperatures possibly rising from deep lows in early December and instead keeps going... And though it is nothing amazing it gently increases the likely amount of precipitation. What snow that does fall should certainly be falling on welcoming frozen ground...
Interestingly ECM pulls the core of the cold away from the east and puts it closer to the UK. |
snowHeads needs a "Like" button for great posts like this
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^ LOL, I like too!
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You know it makes sense.
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And a mega like from me 
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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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nozawaonsen, we are forecast to go down to -20°C at the end of next week. Just in time for me to have to drive through the night in the other direction than the Alps. I'm visiting Blighty for 4 days 
Temps are due to stay down into the beginning of December according to the longer term forecast I watched this evening. All we need is a nice little deep but active Adriatic low pressure system to chuck the moisture our way and we're well and truly off to a good start.
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Poster: A snowHead
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I like.... but I'd like a lot more if the precipitation wasn't so tentative and easily scared away. We really don't need a few weak disturbances easily nudged aside by high pressure.
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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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On the above snow map, what do the small blue numbers dotted around europe represent?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Ricklovesthepowder, it's the fun index. The higher the number the more fun there is to be had
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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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Ricklovesthepowder, it represents the amount of snow which will fall in that area between now and a week's time. I wouldn't take it as gospel mind you. As far as I am aware (?) it is a direct map of what the GFS operational run is predicting and as such goes up and down with each run... It's interesting as a guide to the trends rather than actually predicting that between now and next Friday x amount of snow exactly will fall in a specific area. Kind of fun if not taken too seriously...
scotia's description is pretty good too...
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Fri 19-11-10 1:14; edited 1 time in total
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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If that comes off the English slopes may fire up....
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kitenski, it's measured in feet, right?
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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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Samerberg Sue, there was a not especially active low sitting in the Adriatic in 18z around +276, hence the comment... But GFS has shuffled the pack once more... Maybe this from 00z at +192? Doesn't look quite tight enough to me...
I thought this was a good illustration of how the phenomena works when it works!
"Mini Case Study on snow over the eastern Alpine region"
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Fri 19-11-10 8:23; edited 1 time in total
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nozawaonsen, that's exactly the situation we love to see in winter! Not sure if it will be coming in the next few days though. I hope not as I have to be in the UK the end of next week and only have a short time to get back here for work.
Then let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! 
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FAQ
