Weather
The European Alps stay in a mostly light-snow pattern through Monday, with a weak refresh early this week, a drier midweek stretch, and then a modest weekend pulse before the outlook turns much less certain next week. Confidence is best from Monday March 16 through Monday March 23, when guidance broadly supports small to moderate refreshes, snow levels that are generally low enough for most mid and upper mountains, and only limited wind trouble. After Monday, there is still a clear signal for another colder storm cycle, but timing and placement spread out too much for precise calls.
Monday night through Wednesday looks like a broken, low-end refresh rather than a true storm cycle. Guidance generally converges on light snow popping up in several waves, but it still diverges on which subregions cash in most, with the eastern Alps and a few higher Tirol and Engadin resorts having the best odds of coming away with a useful 5 cm-15 cm by Wednesday while many western French and Swiss areas stay closer to a trace up to 5 cm-10 cm. Snow levels during the active hours mostly sit around 1,000 to 1,400 meters, though a few milder pockets briefly push closer to 1,500 to 2,000 meters, so the higher terrain is favored for cleaner accumulation. Snow quality should be decent but not especially fluffy, with SLRs often in the 10-14 range and occasional denser 7-10 snow at the lower elevations. Winds stay fairly manageable, so the main impact is freshening surfaces rather than widespread lift disruption.
Thursday and Friday are largely quiet, then guidance comes back into better agreement on snow returning Saturday and continuing into Sunday night or early Monday. The timing signal is solid, and most solutions keep snow levels near 900 to 1,300 meters during the better part of that round, which should favor another region-wide refresh for the open high terrain. Where guidance still diverges is intensity and exact placement: some solutions keep this to a modest 5 cm-10 cm type event for many resorts, while wetter scenarios drive more like 10 cm-20 cm into the higher border terrain near Italy, Switzerland, and parts of the western Alps. SLRs mostly run in the 11-15 range during this period, so the new snow should come in as fair to fairly light chalk and packed powder at elevation, with lower villages seeing a heavier edge if snow levels wobble upward for a few hours.
From Tuesday through Thursday, there is enough agreement on a colder and more active pattern to keep skiers interested, but not enough agreement yet for precise resort calls. The broad signal supports another round of accumulating snow, and a conservative read of the guidance suggests many areas could pick up roughly 15 cm-35 cm in that period, with higher totals possible if the wetter western and border-focused solutions verify. Confidence drops off quickly here because guidance diverges on whether the snow comes as one stronger wave or a couple of separate pulses, and it also diverges on which side of the range gets the deepest totals. For now, the practical takeaway is straightforward: expect firmer conditions during the midweek lull, a modest weekend refresh, and then the potential for a more meaningful late-window storm cycle if the colder, wetter scenarios hold.
Resort Forecast Totals (Mon Mar 16 – Mon Mar 23)
- Cervinia – 13 cm-22 cm
- Sölden – 11 cm-19 cm
- Zermatt – 10 cm-19 cm
- Kitzbühel – 13 cm-18 cm
- Val d’Isère – 9 cm-16 cm
- St. Moritz – 8 cm-14 cm
- Tignes – 7 cm-14 cm
- Samnaun – 8 cm-13 cm
- Cortina d’Ampezzo – 7 cm-12 cm
- Ischgl – 6 cm-10 cm
- Val Thorens – 6 cm-10 cm
- St. Anton – 6 cm-9 cm
- Chamonix – 5 cm-9 cm
- Wengen (Jungfrau) – 5 cm-9 cm
- Verbier – 4 cm-8 cm
- Courchevel – 4 cm-7 cm
