Winter has been hanging on in the eastern Alps lately, while the rest of the northern Alps and the Pyrenees have been more spring-like. The recent storm cycle in the Austrian Alps provided some of the best conditions all season and even some solid powder turns in the western part of the country. The next week will be mostly dry, outside of some rain/snow showers on Wednesday, but stormy weather returns next weekend. 

A weak storm will bring some rain and snow showers to the southwestern Alps on Wednesday and Thursday, but with warm temperatures and limited dynamics, impacts will be minor. Our attention then shifts to later in the weekend. 

Around Sunday, the ridge over northwestern Europe will have moved into eastern Europe, allowing an upper-level low over the Atlantic to drift into the western Alps. This should produce a moist southwest flow for several days. Around the middle of the following week, a piece of energy from the upper-level low is expected to separate from the parent low and track through southern Europe. Several more stormy days are expected.

Below is the upper-level pattern from Sunday the 13th through Saturday the 19th. You can see the trough just off the coast in the Atlantic over the weekend and then the piece of energy breaking off and crossing the Alps starting around the middle of the week.

Overall, this moist, generally southerly flow is expected to bring a prolonged period of upper-elevation snow. However, as is often the case with this type of setup, the flow off the Atlantic Ocean is warm. Given the time of year, it looks like it will be even warmer than some of the other stroms we've had in this setup this season. Some cooler air is expected to move in later in the week, but the latest guidance has snow levels above 1800 m for much of this cycle. 

Despite the warm temperatures, this cycle will have abundant moisture. Significant snow is possible at upper elevations during this stretch. It's still early, but snow totals in the .5 to 1 m range seem reasonable, and some models show much more than that in the southwestern Alps, with some locations exceeding 2 m. A lot can and will change before then, but there is definitely potential for a hefty spring storm. 

Although the signal is not too strong at the moment, there are some signs that the third week of April could remain stormy. I don't see any respectable cold air masses moving into central/southern Europe, but it's still two weeks away.

My next post will be on Wednesday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

Alps Regions:

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