Snow showers, heavy at times, have continued over the past day and will be replaced by widespread heavy snow Thursday afternoon. This will continue through about Friday morning before once again turning more showery. The northwest Alps are favored and another 35 - 70 + cm is possible from northern Franc through western Switzerland. As you move farther south in the French Alps and farther east in the Swiss Alps. Here, 20 - 50 cm are expected. Totals then drop off in the far southern Alps and central/eastern Austrian Alps.

Here is the latest snow forecast for the second wave from the WRF High-Resolution model.

After the showers wrap up on Friday, a ridge will build in over southern Europe, ushering in warmer air from the south and deflecting storms north of the mountains. We could see some rain and snow showers return as early as Tuesday, as the ridge begins to break down allowing the storm in the north to graze the Alps. 

The long range models are starting to hint at another ridge developing in the northeast Atlantic, that would block storms from moving into Western Europe similar to the dry pattern we saw for much of October and November. The ridge may be just far enough west that the eastern Alps could get some storm activity but it’s too early for those details.

Next post on Friday.

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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