As the Polar Vortex Weakens, the Alps Watch the Season Ahead

The Guardian reported on Monday that the stratospheric polar vortex over the northern hemisphere faces the prospect of an unusually early weakening, with forecast models suggesting it could weaken significantly over the next ten days. The disruption to winds above the Arctic, the paper wrote, threatens to alter weather patterns across parts of Europe in the coming weeks.

In Italy the nearer signal is a simpler one. The Local Italy reported the same day that temperatures are set to fall below seasonal averages across the country this week, with heavy rain and strong winds expected in the centre and south on Monday. They are two different forecasts on two different timescales.

From Aosta, the second matters more immediately than the first. A cold week in early November is ordinary at this altitude; what the valley watches is whether the precipitation arrives as snow high up, and whether it stays.