We're finally seeing a break in the action this week as a ridge over central Europe keeps any storms out of the Alps. A trough off the coast of Portugal will bring some light rain and snow to the Pyrenees, but only minor accumulations are expected at upper elevations. 

This area of low pressure in the northeast Atlantic will come onshore later in the week and get the next long-duration snowfall started. Similar to last week's storm cycle, we will see a low in southwestern Europe for much of the week, bringing southerly flow and several rounds of snow to the southern Alps. 

The upper-level pattern forecast below shows the low-pressure system over southwestern Europe through the middle of next week.

And here is how the storm will play out across the region from this Friday through next.

The position of the trough over Spain will provide a persistent, moist, southerly flow. This will bring the best orographics into the southern Alps from Friday through Wednesday. At the end of the GIF of the upper-level pattern above, you can see a small low dropping down from the north. This would bring a period of snow to the northern Alps, which you can see at the end of the surface weather GIF as well.

Below is an early look at snow totals through Wednesday.

This model has the biggest snow totals, over 1 m, in the southern Swiss and Italian Alps. I think the jackpot zone will likely see 1 - 1.5 m from this storm, with a wide area of the southern Alps seeing .5 - 1 m. This includes the southern French Alps, the east-facing part of the southwestern Italian Alps, and the eastern Italian Alps as well. 

This storm cycle doesn't look as cold as the last one, though, with snow levels between 1500 - 1800 m for most of the southern Alps for most of the storm. Right now, the best pow days look like Saturday and Tuesday, but I will update that as we get closer. 

After the potential storm from the north around the middle of next week, we could see that pattern continue into the following week. The long-range models show a few more moderately sized storms moving in from the north, bringing some accumulating snow to the northern side of the Alps. The northern Alps have been left out for the most part for several weeks now, so let's hope the models are on to something. 

My next post will be on Friday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow