carinthian

Winter wonderland picture above Obertauren in this mornings sunshine.

This morning on top of the Zehnerkarbahm station in Obertauren. All part of the 360 degree circuit ski-ing here, clockwise or anti clockwise, you end up in the place you started ! High base resort with all runs above 1800m so snow sure resort Nov- April. One of my favourite ski resorts but Apre not for the faint hearted ! C

Fantastic sunrise this morning in the Eastern Alps. C

A quote from Carinthian from the same day last year... "Another cloudless morning dawns. Sunshine and warmth all the way until 17/18th of this month. The picture below shows only snow on 3000m plus peaks." Polar opposite, if you'll excuse the pun... Yes, a massive difference to this day last year. Current picture towards our part of the mountain this morning. Temp -5c and sunshine sparkling. C

Snowy village scene in nearby village of St Margaretten in the Lungau. A bit lower here at 1200m asl, the bottom ski station from the higher Katschberg runs. C

Early season skiers enjoying the fantastic conditions on the Pitztal Glacier in Tyrol. C

Some photos from this morning. Winter wonderland on the Katschberg. C

Good Morning, the recent chopping and changing of ECM ops to 144 hours has been very noticeable this past week. Many are looking to the next cold period out to the 10 day period. However, based of recent performance, maybe this cold spell is not going to be easily dislodged by a milder zonal westerly flow. Certainly ECM wants to push this through quickly over the coming weekend well into Scandinavia and dropping heights there. The UKMO models looks to hold heights to the west of the British Isles and maintain a fair strong upper ridge over Scandinavia with still the development of what could be described as a quashi stationary trough in the North Sea. Still time for some chopping and changing in the next day or so and that's just in the 144 hour period forecasts. C

Heres a picture from the Scandinavian Alps sent by my daughter yesterday evening . Main street Are in Sweden, their top resort. Temp -11c. It gets so dark there , that the main ski seasons gets going in March and April ! C

Guten Morgen voom Katschberg. Currently-5c. C

Hi , that's a great Pano Shot. I don't think there will be many stopping for lunch today. C Looking good for wide-spread snow in the Austrian mountains from Sunday! The weather website wetter.at predicts: "the largest new snowfall (will be) in the Hohen Tauern mountain ranges - up to 60 centimeters by Tuesday." Snow accumulation up to Sunday: Full report in Austrian: http://www.wetter.at/wetter/oesterreich-wetter/Eis-Schnee-im-Anmarsch/257232926 Edit: Just spotted that wetter.at are reporting in a separate article that: "In the winter of 2015/2016, the number of arrivals (+ 5%) and 68.5 million overnight stays (+ 4%) reached record levels...." Well done Austria! And with plans to invest a further 700 million Euros in their lift systems, visitors numbers are surely set to continue growing. Full article: http://www.wetter.at/wetter/oesterreich-wetter/Seilbahnen-ruesten-um-700-Millionen-Euro-auf/257216707 Morning all. Katschberg just won best Ski resort for 80km and under. I am not surprised as the runs are just magical. Looking forward to the snowfall on Sunday. A few pictures of some of the pistes around the village. C

Guten Morgen vom Katschberg... -5C. C

Now the new thread is up and running and snow is falling in the mountains , thoughts turn to winter pleasures. Just bought this sweater and thought of some of our other senior skiers on here, namely Malcolm and John Holmes. Maybe Johns would better reading, "Never underestimate an miserable old man , who loves ski-ing !! ... nice to see snow settling early this season, lets hope the polar cold holds in places for a while longer, all the better for the piste work due to start soon. C

Morning Malcolm, yes we have installed a few more snow cannons last week but our pistes are fairly well served. You will notice that the investment is in the higher resorts both Turrachter Hohe ( not far from here is based at 1900m ) and Nassfeld towards the Italian border . Sorry to say , many of the old traditional village resorts at 1000m and below are suffering through the run of mild winters. Last year I went to Alpbach in February, a picture box village , always had snow, but rarely holds it nowat 1000m. Today we have plenty of powdery snow so piste workings start soon. Snow blowers may come into use if we hold the polar airmass by next weekend. Cheers C

Snow in Are , Sweden this morning. View from my daughters balcony. Currently -11c brr. C

Snow arrived on time last evening. Still snowing from the Polar front over much of the Alps. First picture now of the bottom of the piste in Katschberg and second from nearby Obertauren. Snow level dropping to below 1000m. C

Morning all. Katschberg just won best Ski resort for 80km and under. I am not surprised as the runs are just magical. Looking forward to the snowfall on Sunday. A few pictures of some of the pistes around the village. C

Hello Reefseeker, yes we have a light covering here from the front that clipped us last night. Can see the snow showers to the North of us affecting the Obertauren Range but not depositing much. But turned much colder today and forecast for some snowfalls generally on Sunday. Hopefully enough for us to start work on the piste foundations as cold temperatures are expected. C

Cold lovers chart of the day from ECM. Classic cyclonic trough distruption of the advancing front that will create a cut of circulation into France with possible quasi - stationary cold front over SE Britain. Could eventually give way to some real cold advection from the East. However, the forecasting of this is very hard to predict, in comparison the other N American models are not going along this route.. In the coldest of winters , this picture becomes a regular feature and is hard to displace. I hope we are on the cusp of something very special for a real cold winter to start. I will have a chat with Offenbach guys later this morning to get there view on this chart coming off. Could be interesting. Meanwhile we are currently having the ski lifts weighted and safety tested in the resort, that's a sure sign that winter is just around the corner.

Snow flurries this morning. Temp 0c, partly cloudy but plenty of breaks. Temp at 2000m is -3c, so in colder air mass today. C

Morning all, Cold lovers chart of the day from ECM at 144 hours. Super cold Scandinavia uppers, Baltic blizzards. Arctic Continental Cold air mass advection into Northern and Central Britain. Lots of variance in model outcomes. I would favour now that the cold scenario continues . ECM and particularly GEM has held heights in the 7-10 day period over Scandinavia with possible frontal stalling over the Western part of the British Isles with a possible upper trough forming near to the British Isles (NW/SE axis ) Great model watching continues. PS . My daughter in Stockholm reports the first snowfall of the season in the City this morning. C

Make the most of it Johnboy ! Same here , cloudless day, mild, temp reached 10c here in my back garden at 1670m absl.

This chart from GEM is my favourite route towards early seasonal snowfall. Would eventually produce a sharp upper trough over the UK in the 10 day time span prolonging much of Europe in the colder air mass. Has been discussed over here with the other models and certainly not out of the question as could lead to some significant snowfall in places. One for our snow portal providers to get excited about. C

Just been issued by our snow portal service of advanced warning of significant snowfall for Sunday. Preliminary forecast of 50cm at height location 2000m . All due to sinking of a polar trough into the Alpine region by the end of next weekend. As the weekend approaches I will update with the information provided by our fine mesh model numericals as to the exact amount of snowfall with timings to with-in a few square Km. Usually not far of the mark. Meanwhile, nice mild Autumn sunshine continues in the Eastern Alps. C

Not seen this early extensive cover of snow for a long time ( forecast date 10TH November 2016). Quite a significant depth throughout the heart of Russia and even snow cover as far west as Dutch/ North German border. All as a result of the persistent Northern Blocking and no length of zonal blasting. Warms the cockles of your heart ! C