Brucie wrote:why does it almost always indicate a heavy fall of snow?
It doesn't.
Check the first few locations on our "snowiest locations" list at https://www.j2ski.com/snow_forecast/. Not much snow in the forecast for much of the US at the moment is there?
As for Europe, next week is looking full of precipitation and quite possibly cold for April too.
Watch the GFS visualization on Ventusky; lots for The Alps and around the 18th a potential fizzer rolling a bunch into the Pyrenees...
https://www.ventusky.com/
...and that storm's a nice example; if subsequent model runs (or the eventual reality) push it slightly North then the snow now forecast for Andorra will end up being rain in Bordeaux.
Ventusky is nothing to do with us; but we think it's a very cool and easy way to get the big picture of the forecast model outputs.