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brian

The winter's dooooomed, dooooomed I tell ye, in fact what winter ? Sad

ie. it looks like the High Pressure to the West of the UK will sink over us and then over the continent, dragging some milder air and dry conditions onto the alps. In fact, it doesn't look stupidly mild, so next week should see some great skiing on top of this week's snowfall in sunny conditions.

Further out, there are hints of interesting things in the pipeline. Wink

The models seem keen to build another blocking high west or north west of the UK and much like the last few days, move the Euro High out of the way and allow low pressure (and snowfall) to reach the mountains. As ever, far too far out to be more than a hint but for those of you looking at these 16 day forecasts, hopefully you'll start to see some snowfall numbers appearing in the 5-10 Feb timescale.

If a block does go NW of the UK then Scotland could do well and Englandshire could see a real burst of winter from the Scandinavian direction, where things are at last properly seasonal.

A snowHead

Ah but that mild air does come in from the West and the models are currently showing it struggling to get much past mid-Austria before some biting cold re-establishes itself... so not ALL of the Alps get blasted - a fair part of the Italian and Austrian bits further East could get away with it... and even see a bit of precipitation from the mild/cold battle if they're lucky.

Currently crossing fingers really, REALLY hard for that low pressure to cruise in a few days before the 10th when I head out to Garmisch!

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

The 06hrs GFS models are out now. Warming up a bit but in a few days but then cooling and a fair bit of the old Niederschlag Very Happy

It will change on the 12.00hrs stuff though Toofy Grin

brian

carled, you're absolutely right and in any case there will be cold air trapped under the high and inversion effects and so on, so shouldn't be too bad at all anywhere really, I don't think.

I was trying to post in a lisach stylee but maybe it didn't come off wink

Could be very good news down the line for the half termers though ....

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I have also noticed this building up on wetterzentrale - looks very promising hope it happens !

brian

12z a bit different (as you'd expect) but a block in there and snow on the 5/6 Feb.

Starting to build a decent trend Smile

Frosty the Snowman,

Didn't know you were a GFS junkie. I am impressed snowHead

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johnboy,

Smokin Joe, and I can cowdoo it with the best of them. Must confess to looking at about 11 and 5 each day though Embarassed

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Worth noting that GFS 00z has downplayed the heat a little next week - in that the control run is back down with the "pack", and there's only two mild outliers now.

skanky, yup, only showing about 2-3 degrees above average which is nice.

Frosty the Snowman, much like you I follow the GFS thingys now, have book-marked Geneva for a Chamonix trip this Sunday and La Plagne for Feb half-term week.

wink

brian

brian

Frosty the Snowman, Laughing

.... add your cowdoo to the stinking heap with the rest of us wink

A snowHead

So, does any of this mean that there's going to be more snow and cold proper temps in the montgenevre area between feb 4th and 11th?

brian

shoogly, mibbes aye, mibbes naw wink

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

shoogly, my long range forecast with accu weather confirms that for briancon, but its a long way off so it could be wrong!

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snowangel., nah, sounds good as it is. no need to change it! Very Happy

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Control run La Plagne below 0C for pretty much the whole run, now. Snowfallls downgraded in all but a few runs as well, with one run showing snow around the 5th being one of the warmer runs and the two showing the big spikes later on being the colder runs. Quite a lrage spread, but mostly below average. GFS seems to be changing it's mind about how much warm air will reach the Alps. Time to look at the other models and the general charts to see what the deal is...

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Right, a quick look at the models suggests an interesting development.

ECMWF & UKMO are in reasonable agreement out to 144hrs (Wednesday night), and GFS 00z is a bit different. All models move the very cold air away from the western end of the Alps by Sunday night, but it never moves far away so anywhere could remain cold after that - especially the further East you go. The main differences between the models are in the position and size of the high pressure area that's sitting over the UK. At 144hrs all three cmodels have a reasonable agreement over the high pressure, but the low that moves into northern Europe is the fly in the ointment. It is the development of this that has caused GFS to downgrade next week's warmth. Different positions and depths mean that its southerly influence varies and UKMO & ECMWF develop it more and have it pushing colder air further south than GFS does. Signs that Austria and the eastren Alps could get snow towards the end of the week but it's a close thing at the moment. By 192hrs GFS has lost the low pressure and built a strong high pressure over much of Europe, whereas ECMWF has short-lived northerly on the back-end of the low.

GFS is most keen to move it eastwards to centre over the UK and the North Sea and push any northerlies eastwards, whereas the ECMWF keeps the high pressure to the west and maybe even drags some very cold air from the east.

06z seems to be similar but emphasise the difference, but haven't had time to look at it properly.

The variation is just under a week away and there's enough differences to suggest that the models have no great handle on the low pressure system. It's such a fine line with the cold/warm air that a slight model change could affect a large part of the Alps. The model variation is such that, though there's a general agreement that the high pressure will block and there's a low pressure moving through the north, two different forecasters may give a noticeably different forecast for a specific region or resort as their models place the dividing line a hundred miles or so one way or the other.

So whereas next week was looking settled, it's back up in the air again, and take any forecast for next weekend onwards with a large pinch of salt.

Hopefully I've not missed any elephants there.

After all it is free

I think Thomas Harris is currently skiing in Zermatt.

brian

Thought I'd resurrect this thread, as I'm not sure I'm ready to get down with the masive Confused

So there is excellent model agreement up to the end of the weekend that the High currently knocking about the UK will link up with another High ridging down from the arctic. Potentially, that's excellent news but (as always) there's a fly dipping its toes gingerly in the ointment rolling eyes

This is UKMO at T+144, the other models are very similar at this point.

So follow those isobars back North and you can see that very cold air is heading towards the UK. We just need that annoying bump of a ridge that's sticking out of the High over France towards Switzerland to get its goddamn ass out of the way ....

The models at the moment are pretty much in universal disagreement about where to go next,

ECM looks good, GFS not so good (but 06z looks like it might be better) ....

.... so let's go with the GEM because it's a cracker wink

and I've always liked Canadians Very Happy

brian

6z GFS and 12z GFS both good and much more in line with ECM (and GEM) !! High pressure links up to the north, jetstream on a southerly track, Euro High gets out of the way, bingo !

6z was colder but 12z has much more snow. The 6-10 Feb looking potentially very interesting wink

Both runs great for Scotland Very Happy

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Not going to study charts while I'm here, but just thought I'd point out that the LP decided to move further north, there's little affect down south but watch on the FAX charts where the cold front goes. The warm air is about - got quite warm (esp lower down) today. Looking at the charts it looks like it won't get as warm as it orginally looked, but it's still warm enough. Anyway, not as good as it was looking possible when I posted above - but not as bad as it had looked a couple of days before, and looks like it'll get better. I'll let brian get his thread back, now. Wink

brian

Still looking good, an upgrade today if anything Very Happy

Masive !!

You know it makes sense.

brian, so hows it looking now Puzzled

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

brian, yip whats gonna happen from the middle of next week, is it still looking positively mouthwatering as you said ealier Puzzled

brian

Yep, still looking good for the period around the 7-10 Feb (and even more snow beyond that if you want to believe the far out stuff).

Temps look around the seasonal average, I reckon it currently looks like snow right through for above 1500m. Below that it could be a mixture of rain and snow, impossible to give much detail this far out.

A snowHead

brian, if you look at the 2m surface charts then they're currently showing WAY colder temps than the 850... I've just learned that this is apparently quite common with northerly flows where the wind tends to chill the surface area more than the upper reaches... seems odd though (10 - 15 degree differences at times) and I'm not entirely sure what effect this could have on snowfall as opposed to rainfall at lower altitudes... depends how far up the cold air goes, I suppose... I'll go and hunt down some 900hpa models... wink

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

carled, let us know once you have hunted down 900hpa models...

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Chris Brookes, you are sounding like a desperate man.

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Smokin Joe, interested but not desperate....yet wink

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Is this true ?????

After all it is free

Is this true ?????

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this morning's chamonix meteo forecast is for snow showers Tuesday, then sunny again Wednesday, though with a low confidence level after Monday. Freezing level not too clever. So I suppose that means we need to wait a few more days to get anything very clear for next week. Certainly warm today - just about to have my breakfast on the terrace in my dressing gown....just as well I'm not in the habit of posting photos.

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