Europe Daily Snow
By Luke Stone, Forecaster Posted 1 year ago November 19, 2023
Rain/Snow Showers Sunday, Next Storm Monday
Summary
Rain and high elevation snow continue today (Sunday). A quick break on Monday before the next storm arrives, bringing more snow to the Alps and Pyrenees. This will bring solid totals to the Alps and significant totals to the higher elevations of the Pyrenees. The weekend storm has continued to trend farther east, but considerable model disagreement remains on the track.
Short Term Forecast
On Sunday we'll see rain and high elevation snow showers, with some moderate periods of precipitation throughout the day. Snow levels will sit around 2400 m in the western Alps and around 2100 m in the east. I don't expect more than 5 - 10 cms of dense snow up high before the showers wrap up overnight, with the Austrian Alps favored.
The next storm will take a bit of a different track than the past several storms, as part of the upper level energy drop down prior to reaching the Alps. This will result in some solid snow for the Pyrenees, with moderate totals in the Alps. The models have come into better agreement overall on the storm track. Check out the upper-level setup below, with the low pressure system diving down into Spain before cuts off south of the Mediterranean.
Once the storm cuts off and remains well south of the Alps and Pyrenees, Central Europe will no longer see additional impacts, so I expect this storm to wrap up Wednesday night.
In the central and eastern Pyrenees, expect 30 - 60 cms of snow above 1800m, with 25 - 50 cms above 1500 m. Snow levels will start high but quickly fall to around 2000m as the snow picks up, and then down to 1200 - 1500 m for most of the storm. With winds generally out of the north, the northern side of the Pyrenees will be favored. Check out the snow forecast from the European model below.
With the main surge of energy directed at the Pyrenees, impacts over the Alps will be less significant. Still, there will be a period of snowfall from Monday night through Wednesday afternoon favoring the Austrian and Swiss Alps. Snow levels will be low enough for mainly snow this time. Expect 10 - 25 cms for the higher elevations of the Austrian and Swiss Alps.
Extended Forecast
Some of the long-range models have shifted this massive storm farther east, which would cut down on the impacts in the Alps. There's quite a wide range of possibilities from the major models right now. We will have to wait a few more days to see how far east the models bring this upper-level low.
Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow! Follow me @lstone84 on Instagram to track and chase storms all winter long!
Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow