After a warm weekend, we'll have a return to active weather, albeit with mainly weak storms. From Monday night through Tuesday night, impacts from a strong storm to the north will being rain and snow to the western Alps.

Then, from Thursday morning through Sunday morning, a colder but weaker storm will bring some snow to the eastern Alps. 

The upper-level low responsible for this second storm will then cut off and retrograde through southern Europe and become a Retour d’east. The exact track will determine whether winds will be more from the south or the east and thus the locations that get the most snow. The models aren’t in agreement on the track just yet. 

The first storm, starting on Monday night, will have a solid amount of moisture, but temperatures will be warm. Given the west-southwest wind, the western Alps will be favored, and 5 - 15 cm are expected, perhaps up to 20m in some higher elevation locations on the Haute-Savoie, Savoie, and Isere regions. Snow levels will start around 2300 m and fall to around 1800 m later in the storm. 

Later in the week, a storm will drop down from the northwest on the eastern side of the Alps and bring cooler air. Totals should end up in the 15 - 30 cm range for the central and eastern Austrian Alps by Saturday, with slightly lower amounts farther west. Snow levels will start a bit warm for the Austrian Alps, around 1800 m, but should fall to around 750 m during the storm.

We then watch the upper levels as this storm closes off, becomes cut off from the flow, and starts moving to the west. How far south it tracks will play a big part in who gets the most snow, but at this time, it doesn’t look like a major storm for the southern Alps or the east-facing southwestern Alps. 

Eventually, this storm is expected to track to the western side of the Alps, before sealing and returning to the predominant west to east flow. It is at this time that a more favorable east-southeast wind could deliver some bigger totals to the eastern part of the southwestern Alps. 

Next post on Monday.

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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