The All New 22/23 Weather Outlook Thread

A snowHead

It gets so addictive a few weeks out I keep checking to different forecasts heading to la rosiere on 17th but rationally I know all this checking won’t make it snow instead it just tends to get hopes up then dashed again I also know rationally the holiday will still be awesome even if we only get a flurry between now and then. Temps look to be staying cold snow cannons on and enough snow for really decent piste skiing.
I should give up looking but it’s just too hard to resist!!!

A snowHead

@südtirolistdeutsch, it’s fantasy, be patient and see what unfolds!

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

@kitenski, bit mean! Very Happy

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@JDgoesskiing, All will be well in La Rosiere but don’t forget your contected to La Thuille and the forecast looks pretty good that side of the Alpine Ridge

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

As I've got older and switched from boarding to skiing more, I'll take blue sky days over a white out so hoping for some nice sunny days, usually get a few. Odds are generally more in favour of sunshine over a full week
L Thuile is generally great pre Christmas as its so quiet there i'm going to try to stop checking and checking the forecasts, they're usually way off beyond 5-6 days. It was simpler before when we had internet at our fingertips and you turned up and opened your curtains in the morning to see what they day might hold!

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@südtirolistdeutsch, basically there is the potential (but far from a certainty) for a colder-than-average period of weather later in December. If that happened then there could be snow (rather than rain) right down to the valleys - but not necessarily for all parts of the Alps.

(Other mountain ranges are available.)

Sounds a bit vague but it's hard to be more specific than that at this stage.

In the short term: mini retour d'est this weekend bringing decent snowfall to parts of the western Italian Alps (e.g. Aosta Valley - Monterosa Ski currently looks directly in the firing line). A larger part of the southern Alps (i.e. all of Italian Alps, parts of southern Austria, southern Switzerland, southern French Alps, Slovenia...) could also benefit but I'm not sure quantities are nailed on yet for these areas.

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@denfinella, thank you! Smile

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@hd, east, west, same, same. But you are of course right.

Looking like that winter forecast for the Northern Alps from French Meteo on the 8th November which at the time was bucking the trend might well be on the ball for December @nozawaonsen,

You know it makes sense.

It’s the first day of the 2022/23 season for more ski areas. Here is an indication of which runs and lifts are now open. https://www.skiresort.info/snow-reports/europe/sorted/open-slopes/

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Finally looking more like Winter for those of us down Sarf, hopefully, the phoney season is now over!

WebCam panning around the terrace now it's snowing

https://stylealtitude.com/serrechevalierweathercam.html

A snowHead

Some significant snowfall particularly for parts of west and south.

A snowHead

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

@BobinCH,from what I can see Looks like both sides North gets hit later in the week hooray

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@BobinCH, no it’s a little more nuanced than that. Courmayeur should get some, but I’d track a little east to Monterosa or indeed Zermatt if you really want to chase the snow. Though to be honest the amounts may mean it’ll need to to settle to really take advantage.

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Well north west

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SLF outlook

„Weather outlook through Sunday, 4 December
On Saturday in the Grisons, bright intervals of foehn-induced skies are still anticipated, in the remaining regions of Switzerland skies will be heavily overcast. The southerly winds on Saturday will frequently be blowing at moderate strength, in some places of the central and eastern Alps at strong velocity. In the southern regions, light precipitation is expected to begin with, then starting at midday on Saturday the precipitation will become more intensive, falling as snow above 1000 to 1500 m. By Sunday evening, the following amounts of fresh fallen snow are anticipated:

Upper Valais sector of Main Alpine Ridge along the Italian border, western part of Ticino: 30 to 40 cm;

as much as 50 cm in place to place from Monte Rosa into the Simplon region;

remaining sectors of the Main Alpine Ridge from Val Ferret into the Upper Engadine, eastern part of Ticino, Moesano: 10 to 30 cm;

further to the north, only a small amount of snowfall is expected, or else it will remain dry.

Outlook

On Monday, skies will be heavily overcast. In the southern regions above 1000 to 1500 m, approximately 15 to 30 cm of fresh snowfall is anticipated, but these forecast amounts are still uncertain. In the northern regions only a small amount of snowfall is anticipated. Winds to start with will be blowing at moderate to strong velocity from southerly directions, subsequently at moderate strength from westerly directions. The avalanche danger levels are expected to still increase somewhat on the Main Alpine Ridge and southwards therefrom. Further to the north, no significant change is expected.

On Tuesday it will be quite sunny, accompanied by light-to-moderate strength westerly winds. The danger of dry-snow avalanches will incrementally decrease. On the Main Alpine Ridge and southwards therefrom, moist slides can be expected as a result of the solar radiation.“

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They were hoping to open yesterday. No idea if they have.

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forecasts now chopping about all over the place and northern french alps not looking to get much in the coming week. Anyone know what the latest models are saying? I've no idea how to find/interpret them

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@BobinCH, monterosa partially open, from Champoluc up Frachey train then Mandria and the Col. Snow nice yesterday. about 20cm on wall outside right now.

Eggs benedict then a few laps.

Zermatt white over now, and plenty more coming down. Webcams are a treat

You know it makes sense.

@JDgoesskiing, I’m keeping an eye on the forecasts for Morzine/Avoriaz and whilst none have a mega-dump forecast, all seem to agree on a period of pretty unsettled weather that’ll deliver some reasonable falls, starting some time around the middle of the week. Suspect down in Morzine it’ll stay pretty green for the next week or so, but there’s 60-70cm up in Avoriaz and they’re skiing up there today.

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@JDgoesskiing, a couple of places worth looking at, Henri's forecasts at https://wepowder.com/en are usually pretty good (the automatic forecasts less so, they seem to be rather optimistic with regard to amounts of snowfall), a good few explanations of terminology too (eg Südstau being fairly relevant currently). https://www.wxcharts.com/ is a good place for maps, you can look at any location, see graphical interpretations of the various models plus ensembles (which can be set to show forecasted snow depths too). Currently the more westerly southern alps are getting reasonable falls (Zermatt tends to do best with weather from the south). It looks dryer after that with maybe some more around next weekend again mainly southern alps focused. Could all change tomorrow though Smile

A snowHead

@JDgoesskiing and below for a quick overview of where the latest GFS op run believes the white stuff will fall over the next week (though take the precise numbers with a pinch of salt). NE Italy looking likely to benefit the most from the next round @noza wink

https://www2.wetter3.de/Animation_06_UTC_05Grad/180_24.gif

A snowHead

@hd, a lot of this east west stuff is just wildly overrated…

Broadly speaking looks pretty reasonable, though as anticipated (by several people), it’s the southern side that’s doing better at this stage. Mind you game of two halves, marathon not a sprint and indeed Marathon not Snickers whilst we are at it.

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bonkers outlier cold spell for Verbier!

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Repeated on 12z for Zermatt, just down the road and over the hill

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Several days at least of -10c at 850hpa is looking increasingly likely for much of Alps (this is certainly cold, though not exceptionally so). Less clear whether it will extend at this stage.

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@mods about time to pin this one?

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@Rob Mackley, funny how 2 people can analyse the same report and get opposite results. That MF long range forecast on Nov 8th predicted the rest of novemeber to be largely mild and dry, as that was the current conditions / trend for autumn. However just a week later the second half of November had multiple snowfalls, bringing snow depths up to average for NW alps. So I was thinking they got November wrong. For Decemeber they said it would be more disturbed and colder.....which is very much just the annual norm. But more importantly they suggested the pattern delivering this would be high pressure over Spain, and here again this doesn't look like a good call, with an anomalous low sitting over Spain and looking like continuing for first half of Dec. Who knows after that. For the record ECM and UKMO DecJanFeb forecasts are off to a poor start too.....but way too early to see if they come good with high pressure over europe (which would generally be bad).

@kitenski, the blue outlier on your GFS ensembles is the control run. The green op on that chart was actually a warm outlier and is run at a higher resolution than the control and other ensemble runs. Either way the mean (black) is more useful at that range in my view...and is clearly trending colder out to mid month. The Op and control are worth paying attention to, and ideally will lead the mean one way or the other if they are persistent (repeating outliers over several days). But they still swing around too much vs mean especially in blocked patterns....where even the higher res outputs struggle from run to run to nail down the likely path.

Anyway to the amateur eye I think this pattern change into early Dec was well modelled by the main three (ECM, GFS, GEM). Highlighted here on Nov 21st and 23rd was the outlook for Greenland High to lead to cold air from the NE into europe and a southerly running jet. Some of the charts at over 2 weeks out aren't far from the mark. I think that really is the limit of useful forecasting....10-14 days, and even then it's only the general pattern that might be right, as opposed to any detail re. temps / snow. While the 8-10 range can be closer 80% accurate when there is board consensus across models.

So, this great chart set up (Greenland high) has been slightly disrupted by the Iberian low I mentioned a few times. Its interaction with the deep lows dropping into central europe this week has a big impact on how far south the cold flow reaches. Thankfully the low (almost hurriance status, very odd for Decemeber) is drifting a little west, allowing a cleaner separation of energy between the 2 systems. The more the two low's phase together, the more mild air gets mixed in from the south.

UKMO illustrates this....with low west of portugal starting to pull the northerly flow into a SW flow on thursday, delaying and deflecting the deep cold coming down.

By Sunday, the atlantic low is deeper and further west, but it's still proving a nuisance. It could bring in very mild air if it moves east, or we get deep cold from the north if this iberian / east atlamtic low stays far enough west.

GFS 06z show's this ideal evolution, keeping the low's separate, but bringing enough energy across for a better med low as well.

There will be plenty of snow as forecast 9-13th, likely starting off with mild air (so 1600-1700m FL in the NW on Friday) for most of the precipitation, but the FL drops off quickly as the weekend progresses. Then as mentioned above, next week looks cold but still not guaranteed until that winter hurricane issue settles down.

Looking out to mid month, this day 10 ECM mean anomaly chart shows a similar pattern.....Greenland high a bit further west, Europe under low pressure, but with more of a westerly flow into alps, so not as extreme re.cold.

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@polo, Well if you put it like that , yep must admit I was thinking more along the lines of colder and more unsettled than the other forecasts .

@Rob Mackley, yep and that's the important bit really....don't think anyone is too bothered how the snow actually arrives, more of a technical point.
We really do need a high to establish over Spain to reinforce the snow potential into alps.....but the GFS 06z bump looks transitory as more atlantic lows are lying in wait to the west, undercutting the Greenland high via southerly / westerly jet

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So no ‘season starter’ dump on the horizon yet? Possible small accumulations?

Help!!

The All New 22/23 Weather Outlook Thread

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