Well, I’m very fond of snow and getting into the backcountry in a winter wonderland, so I thought I’d share some information on the heavy snowfalls that occurred along the north side of the Alps at the start of January, which, until recently, caused infrastructure disruption and ongoing high avalanche risks.
The snow started at the beginning of the year and has not let up much since. So how come this happened? It had been a pretty dry winter season until then. So here is an informative series of posts from severe-weather.eu, essentially describing the way in which the splitting of the polar vortex (a persistent, predominantly single-centred low pressure system at high latitudes)
An Arctic outbreak into east-central Europe and Balkan peninsula through early January (Jan 2 – 6th)
Stau effect will dump large amounts of snow in northern Alps later this week
Latest model guidance for mid/late January winter weather across Europe
No snow for the southern side of the Alps in the foreseeable future
Check the Tirol Avalanche Report for latest avalanche conditions.
And have a look at the latest advice from freeriders at Powder guide
Another interesting thing is that the Austrian weather service makes their high resolution forecast model (INCA) available for free during such extreme weather events so we can have a look at these usually restricted data: https://www.zamg.ac.at/incaanalyse/
