@langball, For the western (French) or Eastern (Austrian) Alps?
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Just looking at NW French alps, but a few sites have some rain at 1400m wed-fri. Dramatic change from yesterday when forecast was sunny and dry. Certainly volatile. At least the wind isn't picking up, and it's remaining cold enough for snow, just the odd spike in temps / FL during the day.
In the meantime, while we await a more professional interpretation, check out this stone cold classic:
Ann Peebles - I can't stand the rain
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Ha yeah, I've just rechecked and it's changed yet again. YR.NO had steady rain, wed-fri, then sunny weekend, it's now flipped around, sun is back. Icy blasts doesn't update as frequently but it's still showing FL's peaking in the afternoon at 1900 wed, 1700 thurs, 1600 fri
I give up.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Tuesday has changed to a heavy snow day in Tignes according to Snow-forecast, I'm taking that with a pinch of salt.
Anyway, I'm the Eurostar tonight, I will be on the slopes this time tomorrow!
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.
This season is going to be like a yoyo
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
langball wrote:
I give up.
Yeah, probably best to leave it to Nozza
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Quote:
RichardB
hors Piste
Posts: 857
Tuesday has changed to a heavy snow day in Tignes according to Snow-forecast, I'm taking that with a pinch of salt.
Anyway, I'm the Eurostar tonight, I will be on the slopes this time tomorrow!
I am looking at snow forecast, I like their opinion so I am choosing to believe them today (even though it is bollox).
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.
langball, treat the weather like a football match. Fortunes vary dramatically from minute to minute. You never know what is going to happen. And never lose the Faith. Take my mate Scouser Chris. He was in the pub watching the Arsenal-Liverpool match. He left before the end with Arsenal 3-2 up and on the attack. He never knew Liverpool had equalised until the next morning. Missed out on a glorious evening. (though not for me: i'm more Arsenal).
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
I think everyone should look on the bright side, this recent heavy snow has also been accompanied with very low temperatures. Which should help the base for the rest of the season.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Jonpim, gotta stay until the end (was at the nou camp in '99). Forecasting weather seems marginally more tricky than forecasting the stock market. All you can do is weigh up the probabilities and start throwing some darts.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Having seen both ECM and GFS line up behind a more rapid warming solution yesterday both take a step away from that this morning keeping temperatures cooler for longer (although clearly rising from a low point of Sunday night Monday morning).
Verbier
The 00z GFS op run introduces snow on Tuesday in the northern Alps especially in the west. It's the black line above from which you can also see it is at present a bit of an outlier.
Here's how WRF sees the snow over the next five days.
In terms of looking forecasts (rather than the modelling data they are built on) on the internet that many of them will be updating at different times and with a time lag. Last time I checked snowforecast.com had a time lag of around 3 hours on the actual data coming out. I should say that I see nothing inherently wrong with snowforecast.com and for ease of use and comprehensiveness it scores extremely highly, but I think there is a risk that people can read it and assume a greater degree of certainty than is actually possible. Caveat Emptor.
Last edited by Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name: on Fri 15-01-16 10:36; edited 1 time in total
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
under a new name wrote:
@langball, which sites? I see nothing like that.
Bergfex are going warm from Wednesday. Yup, it is still too far to say with any certainty but it is quite a big jump. It will be interesting to see how they go when they update at about 12:15 (CET).
This could be related what Alex Deakin was saying on the BBC Weather for the Week Ahead that I mentioned on the previous page. The computer models struggle with the blocking highs and crate a great deal of uncertainty.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Well, after the arctic temperatures of the next few days, a bit of warmth and sunshine would be just fine
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?
Gaza wrote:
Bergfex are going warm from Wednesday. Yup, it is still too far to say with any certainty but it is quite a big jump. It will be interesting to see how they go when they update at about 12:15 (CET).
Which forecast model do Bergfex use for the rest of Europe? Does ZAMG extend outside Austria?
@hd, is says the source is ZAMG so I assume it does.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@Gaza, those snowlines made for a rude wake up this morning. Last thing before I go to work (and up the hills tonight), where did todays sunshine come from? All week various sites calling for cloud and 20-30cm of snow....yet as I look out the 'jolly old window' it's nothing but blue sky. One of those special mornings for anyone lucky enough to be strapped in.
According to the radar, it'll be with you this afternoon.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@langball, not sure what you are looking at for your forecasts, but you need to change tactics for looking at what is going to unfold in the shorter term (and a forecast with an icon showing sun or snow or cloud doesn't help much).
The day before I'd be looking at the local Avalanche site's forecast as they tend to be good. You could also look at WRF which gives you an hour by hour breakdown of a range of different aspects (cloud, wind, precipitation etc) and Meteograms are pretty handy too.
On the day itself you'd probably have to be a bit odd not to look out of the window whilst your coffee is brewing and poke your nose outside.
People with particularly fine noses can in fact often smell the weather up to 36 and a half minutes away...
Actually that's not true, but Emma Watson for example has a fine nose.
But I digress.
There is of course a fascinating field of studying your local conditions (cf Tristan Gooley and his Natural Navigation courses and books, but that's a whole different though fascinating subject).
Some thoughts from a while back.
nozawaonsen wrote:
Here's something I scribbled down on forecasting at the end of the 2011 season. I thing it still makes broad sense now.
"Looking at shorter term models like GFS etc. Beyond seven days any model is very subject to change. I wouldn't take it that seriously. You might get a trend. GFS provides a longer range, public set of ensembles than other models and these are easier to tie to location than others, but the ease of use does not mean GFS is necessarily a better model than others. To have any confidence in that trend you would want to see it picked up run after run and also joined by other models.
- Closer in GFS and other synoptic models start to be less useful in the 2 to 3 day range. Local variation will start to undermine them beyond the general trend.
- Mesoscale models like WRF may be more useful in the 2-3 day range.
- Right close in, on the day or day before for example, if I needed a good forecast I would almost always choose the local avalanche forecast for accuracy.
- Don't take it that seriously."
To which I'd add that beyond seven days you can't really talk about a forecast, what you have is a range of probabilities, as shown by the different coloured ensembles, which is almost always simply too great a spread to really call a forecast. You can't really make sense of these as a single snapshot. So you need to see how they evolve from run to run to give you a sense of whether certain options are looking more or less likley.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Fri 15-01-16 12:37; edited 1 time in total
After all it is free
After all it is free
@Noza - every season I follow this thread avidly. I do not understand the charts but love to get a feel of what the weather is likely to be and relate it to the resort we are going to. This is the first year we have decided to go to the Dolomites (Madonna) in March as we normally go to the French alpes. We are taking a family with us who have never skied before and hoping for a winter wonderland. Having watched the past few weeks as snow has finally arrive to France and Austria but very little it would seem to Madonna and indeed nothing forecasted for another 10 days (YR, Snow-Forecast). The base on the lower slopes has only got to 20cm - not great for beginners. I know you can't predict weather but could it be a trend for this winter that the more Northern resorts in the Alpes will do OK but the southern resorts may continue to struggle or is March just too far away to even consider this? Just thinking we might try and switch to La Thuile .
Probably should post this in another forum but would be interested in hearing people's views here.........
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.
@Simone, it's too far out to tell. So far the +NAO pattern has dominated which tends to favour the northern Alps. It has just switched (and that's also evident from the recent pattern change to colder weather), but it looks like heading back towards positive fairly soon.
But if we switched into a more long lasting -NAO you'd see more snow in the southern than northern Alps. And that could certainly happen between now and March.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
nozawaonsen wrote:
The day before I'd be looking at the local Avalanche site's forecast as they tend to be good.
That's what I do. Noza for a commentary on long term (4, 5 or 6 days) trend, then the local avalanche bulletin for commentary on snowpack and the freezing level and likelihood of precipitation the following day. The avy bulletin for the High Tarentaise has been spot on for the last 10 days.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Interesting to see what CFS was saying back in August, it was pretty consistent on this in the run up. Obviously that's just one part of the pattern, but interesting none the less.
nozawaonsen wrote:
I wouldn't take these charts particularly seriously (in fact I wouldn't take them seriously at all), but at this stage CFS is suggesting a milder than average and wetter than average winter for Europe.
Some very heavy snow years in the northern Alps have come about when the weather has been driven by a +NAO. Whether that is in fact the pattern we end up with, who knows?
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.
I feel a stubborn High coming on , after all this weather recently some in the North/West Alps some will be pleased of a respite ,
not for too long I hope , we all know how long it takes to shift them once in place !
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
06z would go for a relatively long period of slightly above average temperatures from next Saturday.
High pressure, settled weather sunshine cold next week, warmer the week after.
It drops the idea of snow in the northern Alps on Tuesday.
It would be far from unpleasant, but not snowy.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Noza- thanks , the word 'could' means there is some hope, will continue to lurk on this thread!
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Pre-work win this morning:
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Someone has to
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Meteo Chamonix has been pretty accurate for some days. Including the very nice sunny spells today.
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?
Arlberg meteogram (NB I don't think this reflects the likely snowfall over the next couple of days as well as WRF)
Chamonix meteogram
GFS has reverted to a pattern more similar to the one it was producing last night (and has binned the idea of heavy snow on Tuesday).
- Very cold next few days, Sunday night/Monday morning in particular.
- Clear days next week and more settled, winds not as strong as recently.
- Warming to above average by Friday (though cold nights later next week).
- Quite heavy snowfall in parts of the northern Alps next Saturday, relatively high snowline to start with, but falling as the snow does.
- Cooling afterwards with high pressure in charge.
- Very dry in southern Alps and Pyrenees.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
