Weather Photos blog

An extensive and heavy rainfalls are expected over parts of Slovenia in the next 36-48 hours. A deep upper-level trough over western Europe with strong SW-rly jet on its front side will bring relatively warm and moist airmass into central Europe.

A surface cyclogenesis is currently forming over SW Europe and will track NE-wards into northern Mediterranean, expected to be located in Genoa bay by tomorrow afternoon and with central pressure of as low as 1000mb.

Strong warm air advection will be in place in front of the forming and approaching low over northern Adriatic into NW-ern Balkans with relatively strong SW flow in mid levels and strong Scirocco/southerlies beneath it supporting of at least 40-60kts of deep-layer shear. Extensive rainfalls are then expected over much of Slovenia and NE Italy while the highest values can be expected along the main Dynaric mountain range and its exposed places. Strong orographic lifting will be in place, supporting total acumulations in excess of 100mm possible in 12h period and 150 to more than 200mm in 24-36h timeframe.

These extensive rainfalls can be even higher due to locally convective mode of rainfalls as some instabillity will be present with an approaching slight cooling aloft which could lead into stationary orographic convection along the mountain barriers, as SW-erly winds and wind shear seems favorable fo it. Some storms with locally heavier precipitation can be expected in the second half of the day and overnight into Monday, especially in the WSW Slovenia and NE Italy.

Slovenian Agency EARS/NWS has issued several warnings for extensive rainfalls and thunderstorms over western half of the country with locally more than 100mm in 24h period. Here are some words from the warning:

Valid from 29.03.2009 CET Until 30.03.2009 CET
Rain Awareness Level: Orange
rainfall > 100.0 mm/24h
SLOVENIA / SOUTH-WEST ; rainfall : from 75 to 100 mm/24h, locally more than 100 mm/24h.

valid from 29.03.2009 16:00 CET Until 30.03.2009 CET
Thunderstorms Awareness Level: Yellow
Thunderstorms are possible, accompanied by local intense precipitation and gusty winds.

On Saturday, March 21st 2009, there were some spectacular “lee clouds” formations in the late afternoon over western SLO. The day was mostly pretty windy with NEasterny flow while its flow direction in the mid/late afternoon became directly perpendicular to the Dynaric mountain range in western Slovenia which lead in lee clouds to form. As the usually need the exact perpendicular position against the barrier (e.g. mountain range) for lee cloudiness formation.

This is the view from the sattelites… IR and VIS specter. The mountain range can be easily recognized due to parallel back side of the cloud cover to the mountain range orientation.

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I marked my position with blue dot while I was looking SEwards and this was the view outside, pretty impressive lenticularus clouds formations:

A few tenths of new photos have been added into the gallery. I made a trip to Italian Dolomites last weekend, visiting Zoldo Alto area during the day and Nassfeld/Pramollo pass in the evening. The main reason to make this trip was the fact that extreme amount of snow depth have been observed there… something one shouldn’t miss, thats for sure!

Here are a couple of those moments… more can be find in the main gallery:

Please refer to the following link to see the rest of the images:

Few meters of snow (Friuli, Italy) - 07/03/2009