Overall, the southern Alps have had a rough year so far, but some much-needed snow is on the way this week. A Retour d'est storm will bring the necessary easterly flow to deliver snow to the western side of the southern Alps, and then a shift to southerly winds will shift the focus to the central and eastern southern Alps. The models have continued to flip-flop on the mid and long-range pattern. 

Snow is already underway thanks to the Retour d'est system over the Mediterranean. This is a closed low-pressure system that is cut off from the prevailing west-to-east flow that developed thanks to the anomalously strong ridge to the north over northern Europe. Winds generally out of the east/northeast will favor the east and northeast-facing part of the southwestern Italian Alps.

As this storm slowly drifts northwest, winds will become more southerly, and it will combine with a piece of energy from the west. This will then move the heaviest snow to the more southerly-facing part of the Italian Alps, as well as parts of the southern Swiss and Austrian Alps. Eventually, this low pressure will weaken and move off to the east, which will put an end to this storm around Tuesday night. 

Below is the latest snow forecast from the high-resolution WRF model.

The north-facing aspect of the southwestern Italian Alps, as well as the French Alps along the France/Italy border nearby, should see 25 - 50 cm during this time. Elsewhere in the east and south-facing parts of the Italian Alps, 15 - 30 cm is expected, with some higher totals approaching 50 cm in spots, as indicated in the snow forecast above.

The higher totals in the southern French Alps away from the Italian border are from the next potential system arriving mid-week. The models have been flip-flopping like nobody's business regarding this timeframe. At times, they have shown a strong and deep upper-level low moving into the western Alps, or this upper-level low sending multiple weaker waves clipping the northern side of the Alps, or either of these setups being too far west or north for any impacts at all. 

There is some model agreement that from Wednesday to Friday, another storm will move in from the west/northwest, bringing another round of moderate to heavy snow. This could bring another 10 - 30 cm in the French Alps, with lesser amounts farther east. I'll get into more detail in the next post.

The long-range models still remain a bit foggy on the pattern next weekend and beyond. It will depend on where the upper-level low northwest of the Alps sets up. If it does far enough south, the possibility still exists for a series of storms to bring additional snow to the Alps through the end of the month. 

My next post will be on Monday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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Regions of the Alps