A prolonged period of active weather is in store for the Alps over the next ten days. There have been some important changes since yesterday's post, where I outlined the overall setup for this storm. The key difference in the models today is the shorter time the nordstau pattern will be in place favoring the Austrian Alps. Instead, some of the energy from the upper-level low will combine with a closed low coming off the Atlantic and shift the focus more to the western Alps starting on Monday.

So instead of moderate to heavy snow from Friday through Wednesday in the Austrian and eastern Swiss Alps, there will be a shorter period of heavy snow for this region followed by a period of heavy snow for the French and western Swiss Alps. Overall, this will result in lower snow totals in Austria, about the same totals in Switzerland, and more snow in France. 

You can see the changes in the upper-level pattern over the last twenty-four hours below. 

We are still dealing with two strong systems though, the snow totals will just be more evenly distributed across the Alps. The first round of snow will feature colrd arctic air that has picked up moisture over the North Sea. 

So the eastern Alps will get slammed from Friday through Sunday, and then the French Alps will get hit Monday through Wednesday. Below are the latest snow totals from the European model for those two periods.

The Pyrenees will see some addtional snow during this period as well, though much less compared to the Alps. I want to give the models one more day to sort out these recent changes, so I will have more details on timing and totals tomorrow.

Looking beyond the middle of next week, the models have another strong system arriving around the first of December. I'll have more details on that in a future post. 

I am strongly considering chasing this storm to the Alps, with the low base depths and limited resorts giving me pause. Flights are insanely cheap right now so it's a touch opportunity to pass up, but everything needs to be just right to commit to this long-distance chase. A decision will need to be made by the end of today.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow! Check out this short clip from yesterday in Utah, where 22" of snow fell in thirty-six hours. Follow me @lstone84 on Instagram to track and chase storms all winter long!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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