The active pattern continues on Wednesday morning as the next storm in this cycle ramps up in the western Alps. This system is approaching from the west and will bring warm air into the region, causing snow levels to rise through Thursday morning. Snow levels should top out around 2000 m in the western Alps and a bit lower as you move farther east.

Cooler air moves in on Thursday as the upper-level low drops southeast through the Alps. We'll see a transition to west-northwest winds, which will position the northern side of the Swiss and Austrian Alps to receive a good thump of quality snow through Saturday. Snow levels will briefly rise again on Friday evening as a ridge starts to encroach on the western Alps, but the final wave in this cycle quickly drops down from the north with another push of cold air.

The usual suspects favored by northwest winds, such as Chamonix, Engelberg, Murren, St. Anton, etc., will be good places to be. By Saturday, the snow totals will be impressive, with a wide area of .5 - 1.5 m across the northwestern and northern Alps. The biggest totals will be in the Savoie and Haute-Savoie regions of northern France. 

The Wallis, Bern, and Vaud regions in Switzerland, and of course, the Vorarlberg (St. Anton) region of Austria, will get hit particularly hard as well. Outside of these favored regions, most of the northern and northwestern Alps will end up with 30 - 60 cm. 

The southwest winds as the storm initially approaches from the west will also bring decent totals on the southern side of the Alps in Italy, Switzerland, and Austria, to the tune of 25 - 50 cm. Below is the latest snow forecast from the high-resolution WRF model.

Thursday and Friday will be good powder days. On Saturday, skies will start to clear while temperatures remain cold, allowing for further exploration of the new snow.

A strong ridge will build over northwestern Europe and the northeast Atlantic after this final system moves through. The ridge now looks to slowly drift eastward over the following week, keeping any storms to the east.  The latest guidance keeps this ridge over Europe through the third week of January (1/21) at least.

My next post will be on Thursday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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Regions of the Alps