For most of the winter, we have seen storms out of the west, northwest, and north, which has favored the western and northern Alps. The northern French Alps, northern Swiss Alps, and western Austrian Alps have benefitted most from this pattern, while few storms have brought southerly flow, leaving the southern Alps quite dry. We have seen some snow in the southern Alps of late, including the eastern side of the southwestern Alps in Italy, and that will continue with the next few storms. The Pyrenees, who have also seen well below-average snow so far this season, will see a few storms as well. 

Thursday through Saturday will be mainly dry, with the next system moving in later in the day. We will see a couple of waves moving southwest to northeast, spinning around an upper-level low to start the week, and this system will track through the Alps and Pyrenees around Tuesday. As it does, a piece of energy will drop off the main low and track through southern Europe, which will bring a more favorable southerly flow. Finally, a trailing system will drop into the Pyrenees midweek, resulting in another round of heavy snow.

On Saturday afternoon, or perhaps even Saturday morning in the Pyrenees, precipitation will begin falling under a warm southwest flow. This storm will be short-lived in the Pyrenees, but snow should become heavier and more widespread in the western Alps on Saturday night. This round of snow will be short-lived, wrapping up by Monday morning.

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

The biggest totals will be in the southern Alps of Switzerland and Italy, where 25 - 50 cm is expected, with isolated spots exceeding .5 m. The southern French Alps and most of the northwestern Alps from the northern French Alps through the western Austrian Alps can expect 10 - 20 cm, though some spots in the French Alps that do ok with southwest/west flow may exceed 25 cm.

The southwestern side of the Pyrenees will be deepest, with 25 - 50 cm possible, with totals dropping off pretty fast to the east and west. 

The next storm will get underway in the Pyrenees as early as Sunday afternoon but not until Monday morning in the western Alps. This is a result of the strong and deep upper-level low moving inland and will bring snow through Wednesday. In the Pyrenees, winds will primarily come from the southwest, favoring the Spain/southern side. Winds will generally be out of the southwest in the Alps, favoring the southern French Alps as well as the southern side of the Swiss Alps. Below is an early look at the three-day snow totals for this storm from the European model.

This storm will bring significant accumulations as well, with 20 - 50 cm for much of the southern and western Alps.

The models still show another strong ridge developing first in the northeast Atlantic and quickly moving over northern Europe. This will block any storms from the west, northwest, or north, with the only chance of any precipitation coming from cut-off lows south of the ridge. The models have been flip-flopping on whether one of these cut-off lows will track close enough to bring any more action to the southern Alps.  

My next post will be on Saturday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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Regions of the Alps