After a bumper September, which saw metres of snow down across the Austrian and Italian Alps, things have gone quiet in the Alps. Really quiet.
As October has turned to November, and November has turned to slightly later in November, those with early season plans have grown more and more concerned by the lack of snow and, more critically, the lack of forecasted snow.
What has caused the unreasonable warm temperatures and lack of snow this autumn?
The Obvious Answer
There is a really simple answer here. Climate change.
Global warming is causing, amongst other things, the season to shorten and snowfall to become far less predictable. It is also causing, simply, the increase in temperatures is stopping precipitation falling as snow.
The Less Obvious Answer
Aside from Global Warming, what, specifically, is stopping snow falling now - especially when we had metres down in September.
The answer is a huge area of high pressure which has camped out over most of the continent for the past month or so.
This has done two things. First of all, the Jetstream - the constant flow of wind around the northern hemisphere caused by the Earth's rotation - has been kept at bay. The Jetstream normally pushes with it low pressure areas and unstable weather patterns, and is a key driver of bring precipitation to the Alps. Without it, it has been dry, especially in the Western and French Alps.
Secondly, this large high pressure has encouraged warm air to bubble up from North Africa and the Mediterranean. The Jetstream acts as a buffer between cold, arctic air and warmer tropical air, so with this pinned so far north, the warmer air has been allowed to run riot. Thus, it has been both dry and warm across the Alps, with little chance of change.
The Forecast
Things are looking to change moving forward. The Jetstream begins to break up slightly, and this fracture allows cooler air to move down from the North.
Add in a couple of flutters of more disruptive weather patterns, and several forecasts are predicting snow throughout this new week.
Final Thoughts
Snow is coming to the Alps, that much is certain. As this high pressure breaks up, it will allow cooler and more unstable air to move in. At least I hope it does, as someone is off skiing in three weeks and some snow would be nice!
I use WePowder for my forecasting and staying up to date with general weather trends. Alongside clear forecasting, they keep readers up to date with powder alerts and blogs throughout the winter
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