The French Alps have seen impressive snow over the last several days, including another 10 - 35 cms over the last twenty-four hours. Grand Montets in Chamonix is now reporting a snow depth of 4 m at upper elevations. The upper-elevation snowpack in the northern French Alps is very deep at this time. 

The next storm will arrive on Friday, and perhaps earlier in the Pyrenees, and bring snow to both ranges through Tuesday/Wednesday of next week. It looks like we will finally get a Sudstau, with this southerly tracking storm. I posted the storm track in yesterday's post, which showed the unique upper-level setup expected later this week. This storm will have dipped south over the Atlantic Ocean and will approach the Alps and Pyrenees from the west with a southwesterly flow.

The storm will tap into subtropical moisture, extending from off the Moroccan coast, up through the Mediterranean, and into the southern Alps. You can see this moisture plume in the precipitable water map below. 

The southwesterly flow will initially bring warmer temperatures with this storm, but the storm will push through a cold front in short order. The southern French Alps will be favored at the start of the storm with the southwesterly flow.

As the storm moves closer, winds will become more southerly, which will benefit the southern Alps in Italy and Austria. At the same time, this track will be far enough south that the counterclockwise flow around the low-pressure will bring northeasterly winds on the northern side of the Alps, allowing for moderate snow there as well.

In the image below, you can see the southerly flow south of the Alps and the northeasterly flow north of the range.

The result of these different wind directions as the storm crosses the Alps will allow for a wide area of accumulating snow. Typically, the leeward side of the range during storms receives very little snow, if any, due to downsloping winds. 

Similarly, winds will initially be southwest in the Pyrenees, favoring the southern side of the range. As the storm moves east of the range, winds will shift to the northwest and the northern side of the Alps will get deep. This will be a solid storm for the Pyrenees.

I'll have an updated look at snow totals in tomorrow's post, but here is the latest forecast from the European model.

Around Wednesday of next week, a ridge will develop off the Scandinavian coast. This will keep the storm track south of the Alps and Pyrenees for the most part. Remnants of the long-duration storm might combine with a weak piece of energy and track close enough for some snow in the Pyrenees and southwestern Alps, but the majority of models keep both ranges dry at this time.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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