Winter forecast predicts good Swiss ski season

Alpine weather in December can often make or break the Swiss ski season which officially gets underway mid-month. A good dusting of snow when winter gets underway provides resorts with a crucial base to attract early business.

And with December just beginning, snow falls are already piling up in both the Alps and Jura mountain ranges with more on the way according to MétéoSuisse.

“The 30 centimetres that we got last night are gold for us,” said Pierre Yves-Délèze of the Verbier tourist office. “If we get snow in December people will maybe buy a seasonal pass instead of just a weekly pass – equipment too. If you miss the start of the season you cannot have it back,” he said.

Stewart Rampling, specialist long-range weather forecaster in the UK with Netweather.tv, told Swisster that lower air pressure and above average precipitation in December will “mean a very good start to the skiing season” in the Alps, a prediction he says he can make with “70-80 per cent confidence”.

Temperatures for central Europe are expected to hover just above average, according to Rampling who bases his outlook on global oceanic and atmospheric processes (such as El Niño), the use of historical records, and Netweather.tv’s customised predictive model based on Climate Forecast System data provided by the UK National Centre for Environmental Prediction.

But Phillipe Jeanneret, weatherman on Télévision Suisse Romande isn’t buying. “Seasonal forecasts are quite inaccurate for the centre of Europe – between 60 and 70 per cent correct,” he told Swisster.

MétéoSuisse forecaster, Olivier Codeluppi wouldn’t commit himself for the coming season but notes an interesting trend. “We have observed these last years that precipitation is likely to become more intense but over a shorter period,” he told Swisster.

“During the last two seasons there has been a lot of snow. It snowed a lot for one week and then it remained cold which preserved it,” he said.

This observation falls in line with Rampling’s forecast for January, a month which is “expected to feature temperatures between -0.5 and -2 degrees below average in central Europe” with rainfall – hence snow in higher altitudes – also “below average”.

Rampling points to meteorological activity in the Arctic as one of the processes likely to cause the January temperature drop. “The polar vortex will be very weak this year and potentially the weakest in the last twenty years,” he said.

“Ozone is transported out of the tropics towards the poles during the autumn. That process has been particularly active this year. More ozone causes high pressure and this forces colder air down to lower latitudes,” he explained.  Ozone depletion is associated with colder temperatures (-80 degrees Celsius), as in Antarctica.

The resulting cold easterly winds will “block the warmer influence of the Atlantic,” Rampling predicted. Other contributory factors include “above long-term average snow cover across the Northern Hemisphere” and a “southward displaced jet stream and low pressure in the Atlantic extending over Western Europe”.

Seasonal predictions for February in central Europe are “unclear with around a 30 per cent chance of accuracy”, said Rampling. However, “a cold January would result in a colder start to February and increase the probability of a colder than average winter as a whole.”