I certainly appreciate when the weather models remain consistent and in good agreement, and that has been the case for this weekend storm for quite some time now. After some showers in the Pyrenees on Friday, the main system moves in on Saturday. 

This storm will bring heavy snow to the Pyrenees, the western Alps, and the southern Alps, though it will move through the area quickly. Additional storms will keep the snow going although right now it looks like it will mostly be light.

We are now within range to start talking about totals for at least the first day or two of this storm, so let's take a look at the high-resolution WRF snow forecast for the Alps and Pyrenees.

Since the storm will unload on the Pyrenees first, let's start there. This model shows impressive snow totals, with a wide area of 50 - 75 cm, with many high elevation areas of Spain seeing even more than that, up to 1 m. There are even a few spots with over 1 meter forecast from this model. Snow will start Friday night and continue through Sunday, but Saturday night to Sunday morning will feature very intense snowfall rates. 

Snow levels will be a bit high to start, around 2000 m, falling to around 1500 m on Saturday night. With a strong southerly flow, the southern side of the Pyrenees in Spain will be favored. 

In the Alps, much of the southern and southwestern Alps are expected to receive 25 - 50 cm. Parts of the southern Alps along the Italy/Switzerland border and farther east in the Italian Alps could see up to 75 cm.

This isn't a particularly cold storm, with snow levels between 1000 m - 1500 m in the western Alps and 1500 m - 2000 m in the eastern Alps. The heaviest snow in the Alps will fall from Sunday night to Monday.

This storm will be mostly over by Tuesday morning but another wave will likely be moving into the western Alps at that time. 

Around the middle of next week through the middle of the following week, several additional upper-level lows will move through he region. This will bring additional chances for snow through around the 17th. As mentioned, these don't look like major storms at the moment, but there's certainly time for any of them to become more significant storms. 

My next post will be on Sunday.

Thanks for reading the Europe Daily Snow!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

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