The forecast remains on track for significant snow in the Alps and Pyrenees. While this cycle won't feature any massive single-day snowfalls, accumulations will be respectable and produce several powder days across the region. We're looking at three rounds of snow from two primary upper-level lows.

The first storm, which will occur from Saturday through Monday morning, will result from a shortwave low rotating counterclockwise around a strong and deep upper-level low.

This will bring a period of moist southwest flow to the Alps and Pyrenees. As the southwest flow hits the Alps, it often becomes deflected more southerly on the lee side, bringing southerly winds to the Swiss and Italian Alps. This wind direction favors the southern French Alps and the southern Swiss/Italian Alps. Snowfall will be limited in the Pyrenees, but significant accumulations are expected in the Alps, especially parts of the southern Swiss and Italian Alps. 

Snow levels will be around 1500 m initially, falling to around 1200/1300 m on Sunday. They will be a bit higher farther north and east. Let's take a look at snow totals in the Alps and the Pyrenees for this first storm. 

The most snow will fall in the southern part of the Graubunden region, the Ticino region in Switzerland, and the Sondrio and Trento regions in Italy.

The strong upper-level low will then track east toward the Alps and Pyrenees, kicking off the next period of snow in this cycle.

This will be a stronger and longer-duration storm with similar favored regions. Winds will once again bring winds primarily out of the southwest, with a transition to the west later in the storm. Initially, the southern French Alps and the southern Swiss/Italian Alps will be favored, but as the wind shifts to the west, the northern French Alps, as well as parts of the northern Swiss and Austrian Alps, will see heavier snow as well. 

We will see a bump in snow levels on Monday, close to 1600 m in the southern Alps and 2000 m in the western Alps. However, they will fall back down to around 1200 - 1500 m on Monday night and then close to 1000 m on Tuesday. This will result in medium-density snow for most of this storm in most locations, except perhaps the northern French Alps at the tail end of the storm, as a final cold front clips the northwestern Alps.

Below is the latest snow forecast from the European model. Unlike the previous snow forecast map, you can see healthy totals across the western, northern, and southern Alps, thanks to the wind shift late in the storm. It's always good to see these storms that spread the snowfall across many parts of the Alps and the Pyrenees too. 

Most of the Alps and western Pyrenees will see 20 - 40 cm from this storm, with some of the favored areas mentioned above seeing 30 - 60 + cm. 

Finally, another upper-level low will drop down from the northwest into western Europe, tracking through France and Spain, across the Pyrenees, and into northwestern Africa.

This track will deliver the biggest totals to the Pyrenees and southwestern Alps close to the Mediterranean from Wednesday through Saturday. I'll have more details on this storm in a future post. 

Next weekend, a very cold and fast-moving storm could drop from the north, bringing heavy snow to the northern Alps in Switzerland and Austria, especially. However, it's a bit early to nail down any of those details. In the long-range, there are some weak signs of a ridge developing in western Europe, keeping the storm track east of the region.  

My next post will be on Sunday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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Regions of the Alps