Another day with huge snow totals across the Alps, this time from France and Switzerland. Storm totals of 40 - 60 cms + as of the middle of the day on Tuesday. I'll update these totals in tomorrow's post if necessary. It was really puking in the Tirol and Vorarlberg regions of Austria today, so they should be reporting some big totals as well. Yet another early season epic pow day in the books. 

A few posts ago I discussed the upper-level trough not quite digging as far south, and the various implications of such a shift. Well, in the last twenty-four hours, the models show the storm taking a more southerly track once again. Thus, the snow levels will be a little higher, the snow levels will start to fall later, and some of the heaviest snow will make it farther south in the French Alps. 

Snow levels will top out around 2200m on Friday before falling Friday night in the French and western Swiss Alps. It won't get quite as warm, and will cool off sooner, in the Austrian Alps, with snow levels topping out around 1600m.

Check out the differences in the upper-level pattern just twenty-four hours apart. The image on the left is from yesterday's model run (Tuesday) while the image on the right is from this morning's run. The winds were west-soutwest at this time and are now southwest.

I still think totals in the northern French Alps and stretching a bit farther south even in to the Isere region will be massive, in the 30 - 60 cm + range. With higher snow levels though, totals at lower elevations, where some of the precipitation will fall as rain, will be even lower.

The storm stll looks good for western Austrian Alps, with the Tirol and Vorarlberg regions seeing 25 - 50 cms of new snow The rest of the northern side of the Austrian Alps should see 15 - 30 cms as well. 

This southerly shift brings increased chances for snow on the southern side of the Alps as well, especially in Italy and Austria. The Karnten and southwestern Salzberg regions in Austria, and the Sondrio regionin Italy, should now see 25 - 50 cms. 

Below is the latest snowfall forecast from the European model.

There's another storm possible around the Monday/Tuesday timeframe, but the models do not agree on the timing and strength. Overall, it looks like a weaker storm that may track through southern Europe, with only limited impacts in the Alps and Pyrenees. 

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow! 

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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