The next seven to ten days are looking active with a few storms on the docket. The first storm will bring decent totals, especially in the Swiss and northern French Alps. The second storm, arriving on Friday, will favor the southern Alps in Italy and Switzerland. Storm #2 lingers into the early part of next week, a small trailing wave may keep snow going through Wednesday but the models don't agree on this yet. 

Storm #1 gets underway Wednesday evening, with rain and snow overspreading the western Alps. Snow levels start high (1800 m), and climb further as the precipitation intensifies (2100 m). This will be a fairly fast-moving storm with the heaviest snow Wednesday night. Snow totals in the northern French and western Swiss Alps should end up in the 10 - 25 cm range. The latest snow forecast from the European model is below.

Storm #2 arrives early Friday morning. The models have consistently kept the more southerly track with this storm over the last few days, so I am expecting a significant Sudstau. This storm will stick around for a while, with snow continuing through Monday. This storm track will bring predominantly southerly winds to the Alps, which will favor southern Italy and Switzerland, where some big totals are expected.

A wide area of 50 - 100 cms is possible in the areas favored by southerly winds. At times the winds will come from the southeast, which really favors The northern Alps, from France through Austria will receive solid accumulations well, likely in the 15 - 30 cms range, as winds shift to the northwest as the storm moves southeast of the Alps. The Pyrenees should get dumped on during this storm as well.

Below is an early look at potential snowfall from this long-duration storm.

This storm starts out on the warm side with snow levels generally in the 1350 - 1500 m range and will start to lower on Sunday. Snow levels should be around 1200 m by Monday as a cold front crosses the region. The heaviest snow shifts to the northern/eastern Alps on Sunday and Monday. I'll get more into timing, totals, and snow levels in a future post. 

The models currently do not agree on the pattern towards the middle and end of next week. Some of the models bring in a ridge keeping storms away while others have another storm developing northwest of the Alps that would keep snow chances in the cards for several more days. 

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow