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From the end of last week through most of this week, we had a great stretch of powder skiing and riding, but now we're paying the price. There's no precipitation, the skies are clear, and temperatures have warmed considerably. All the recent snow would've stayed in better condition without the warmth associated with this current ridge, but it's too late now. It may be time to stick to groomers until the next period of active weather begins.

I was fortunate enough to book a last-minute flight to Europe to chase the previous storm. Given the forecast, I targeted western Austria (St. Anton) and enjoyed three deep, low-density powder days with surprisingly good visibility. The storm definitely threw me some curveballs that the models did not pick up on.

For the second storm in the cycle, from Saturday through Tuesday, the models consistently showed the biggest snow totals in the central Swiss and western Austrian Alps, thanks to an extended period of northwest, north-northwest, and northerly winds. Impressive, but not quite as big, totals were expected in the central and eastern Austrian Alps as well as the northern French and western Swiss Alps. 

However, as soon as the storm got underway, it was clear things were playing out a bit differently than the models had predicted. The storm was tracking a bit farther west, and the upper-level low was becoming more broad as it began to push up against the Alps. This resulted in a longer period of west-northwest winds and a shorter period of north-northwest and northerly winds.

The northern French Alps face mostly northwest.

The Swiss Alps face mostly north-northwest.

The Austrian Alps face mostly north.

Simply put, the longer amount of time each of these wind directions is present, the better off these regions will do. There are some other factors, of course, but the wind direction and direction of the mountain range are the most important factors in orographic precipitation.

Prior model runs had a more narrow upper-level low with a longer period of northerly winds and even some north-northeast winds, which favors the Austrian Alps. This change led to the snow starting a bit later in the Austrian Alps and less snow overall. The storm cycle still produced well over a meter of snow, but the second and stronger phase of the storm resulted in just over one meter.

The other surprise was the visibility on both Monday and Tuesday. The models showed heavy snow falling consistently throughout both days with very low visibility. The west-northwest winds come more across the British Isles than the north and north-northwest winds, which come right over the North Sea with more moisture.

Combined with the less favorable orographics, this could have contributed to the partial clearing on those days. 

Ultimately, I think these factors only worked to my benefit. Good visibility is crucial at a resort like St. Anton/Lech/Zurs, allowing many additional zones to be skied. The avalanche danger was high during most of the storm, but even more snow could've increased that further. With nearly .5 m of snow overnight two nights in a row, I'm not sure it would've skied any deeper if it had snowed more.

Below are a few pictures from my days there.

We will stay warm and dry through Thursday of next week. Late Thursday night or Friday, the first in a series of storms will move into western Europe from the northwest. At the moment, none of these appear to be major storms, but they should provide a nice refresh and possibly produce a few solid pow days. Snow totals from the first round still look to be in the 10 - 20 cm range for most of the northern Alps, with 15 - 30 cm possible from northern France through western Austria. Winds look to be out of the west-northwest and northwest for most of this storm. 

There are plenty of inconsistencies across models and in different model runs, so I'm not ready to lock in this exact setup just yet. 

The models keep things active and bring several more systems through the Alps in the following days. At the moment, however, the setup is lacking a bit in the moisture department, so these additional storms don't look too big. Let's see if they trend stronger in the coming days. 

My next post will be on Monday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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