Up to 60cm/2 Feet of Snow in 24 hours (& 240cm/8 Feet in 6 Days) in the Alps

Heavy snow in the Alps is producing some of the biggest 24-hour snowfall totals so far as the snowy week continues.

Overnight Les Contamines posted 60cm of fresh snowfall (two feet); Val d’Isere posted 53cm of fresh snow, La Plagne and Meribel 50cm each, Val Thorens and Adelboden 45cm each, Verbier 42cm, Courchevel 41cm, Crans Montana and Les Arcs 40cm each, Alpe d’Huez 36cm and Chamonix 30cm of snowfall.  Portes du Soleil this morning pictured top.

(A bench in Les Gets this morning and below, yesterday)

7 day totals are now almost as much, or in some cases more, than some resorts in the Alps have had all season. La Rosiere, for example, says it has had 2.4m/8 feet of snow in the past six days.  Les Saisies says it has had 194cm (6.5 feet) and Meribel 156cm (just over five feet) of fresh snow in the same period.

The snowfall is very wide spread with resorts in Austria, Germany, Italy, France and the Czech Republic all seeing big snowfalls.  Almost all resorts not posting the kind of huge snowfalls above have still seen 50cm+/several feet of snow this week.  There have also been more fresh snowfalls in the Dolomites and Pyrenees.

Unfortunately the snowfall has not come without other weather factors including violent gales (Alpe d’Huez posted the video below yesterday) and sometimes fluctuating temperatures which have led several resorts to shut all their lifts at times until conditions stabiliser.  Chamonix was one resort to do so (video above from there around midnight last night) and Courmayeur says some of its lifts are closed today.

All the snow and other weather has also set avalanche danger levels to 4 in most places, the second highest level meaning off piste skiing is very, very dangerous at present.