Latest snow forecast
Updated: 4.15pm Saturday 21 December 2024
The Alps are under a narrow ridge of high pressure today, which is bringing a patch of better weather between two storms. The second of these storms will hit the north-western Alps this evening and will be more potent than the last, delivering very significant quantities of snow across many northern and especially north-western parts of the Alps between now and Tuesday.
Areas that will see significant snowfalls include the northern French Alps north of Grenoble (e.g. Tignes, Courchevel, Les Arcs, Flaine, Avoriaz, Chamonix), much of Switzerland excluding the far south (e.g. Verbier, Wengen-Mürren, Engelberg, Laax, Klosters), and the far west of Austria (e.g. Lech, St Anton). These areas will likely see another 60-80cm of new snow quite widely above 1800m between now and Tuesday, with well over 1m in some favoured spots such as the Austrian Arlberg. Bear in mind this is in addition to the 10-40cm that has already fallen across many northern parts of the Alps over the last couple of days.
The rain/snow limit will start quite low but will rise to 1800m in some exposed western parts of the Alps for a time on Sunday morning, remaining lower further east and in some internal valleys, before falling to very low levels again late on Sunday. It will remain low on Monday and Tuesday.
In terms of the intensity of precipitation, the storm will peak on Sunday evening in the northern French and western Swiss Alps, and on Monday evening in the northern and north-eastern Swiss and Austrian Alps. There will also be a lot of wind, meaning that any snowfall will be unevenly distributed, especially at altitude where the risk of avalanche will increase markedly.
Throughout this period, except for the far north-west of Italy (e.g. La Thuile, Courmayeur, Cervinia) where 50cm+ is likely, the southern Alps will less snow, with only a few centimetres at best in the Dolomites, for example...
Cloud increasing over Torgon in the Portes du Soleil ahead of the next storm tonight – Photo: torgon.ch, 21 December 2024
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