There’s a lot of cold air across much of Europe still and with a punishing blast of arctic air diving into eastern Europe, Atlantic frontal systems continue to cut across the UK, France and Spain and as this moist air enters the cold, dense air, heavy snow has and will continue to break out across the higher terrain of northern Spain and the Pyrenees as well as the Alps through this past weekend into early week. The system currently over the UK will swing a front with a lot of moisture along it towards the Alps of France, Italy, Austria and Switzerland and this will bring an additional 1-2 feet of snow and through next Friday with perhaps several systems passing through the area, we may see upper mountain areas see a further 4-8 feet, 2-4 feet at resort level. This will add and freshen the still-excellent ski conditions across much of the Alpine region.

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Related: BBC Skiing Forecast

Here’s the latest GFS snow projections through next Friday

60 hrs

114 hrs

As for the cold, after somewhat of a respite across the UK despite some significant snow in some areas, another charge of arctic air dives down from Scandinavia this week. The majority of Europe from Ireland down to Spain and right across the mainland is seeing a continuation of temperatures 3-6, locally 10C below normal for this time of year.

Very Cold March 2013 vs Abnormally Warm March 2012

This March is quite the opposite to last year when we saw exceptional warmth just like saw across the pond in the US. This March may end up one of the coldest in 15 to 25 years, especially given the sharp downward trend in the negative NAO and particularly AO which promises to keep the cold going on both sides through the remainder of the month.

So how do these two contrasting Marches compare across Europe and why the huge difference? Blame the strongly negative AO and NAO this year vs a strongly positive AO/NAO along with drought conditions last year which helped draw north unusually strong upper levels high pressure systems.

Crunching the numbers of March 2013 so far against the outragous warmth of March 2012?

There’s quite the difference..

City / Country                                      March 2013           Hi/Low           March 2012            Hi/Low

Belfast, Northern Ireland                         -1.7C               9.7C/-5.6            +2.7C              19.8/-0.7C

Glasgow, Scotland                                 -2.2C               12.2/-7.8C            +2.3                20.3/-2.2C

Copenhagen, Denmark                          -1.8C                9.4/-9.9C            +3.6C              17.9/-2.1C

Oslo, Norway                                         -1.7C                 7.2/-17.2C         +5.4C               21.1/-3.9C

Helsinki, Finland                                     -5C                  3.5/-22/6C            +2.5               8.7C/-18.7C

Moscow, Russia                                    -2.5C                6.7/-19.1C            +0.0C              6/-15.2C

Berlin, Germany                                     -2.3C              11.8/-10.7C           +4.1C              20.2/-4.2C

Geneva, Switzerland                              -1.5C              13.9/-6.1C             +2.9C             22.2/-2.8C

Paris, France                                          -2.2C              15/-8.9C                +2.6C             22.8/1.7C

Stats courtesy of AccuWeather Pro

With the exceptions of southern Europe, pretty much all cities across the continent are running anywhere from -0 to -4C below normal this month while all these same places were significantly above normal last March. It will be interesting to see just how cold it gets through the rest of this month and how much below normal these places will be at the close of the month.

If this AO ensemble (below) is anything to go by, we most certainly will finish this month below normal. One must consider the possibility of an historic cold blast to end March given the index goes off the scale.

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