After a snowy fortnight we’ve now got an alarmingly warm spell in the Alps. Hopefully it will end next week before too much damage to the snowpack is done, but in the meantime there are great conditions for snowsports with beautiful sunny days and fresh snow. Particularly on higher runs.
It’s looking good in the Pyrenees where there have been two big snowfalls, in Eastern Europe and in Western North America. Eastern North America and Scandinavia have had slow starts but it has got colder and has been snowing there now.
Austria
Austria’s 8 glacier resorts still have the deepest snow in the country, and the current warm temperatures with the freezing point above 3000m – higher than almost all Austrian slopes, isn’t good news, but more areas are opening joining November openers like Ischgl, Obergurgl and Obertauern. The biggest news is St Anton, which opened on Friday and is looking good from the pictures above.
France
With French slopes higher than many in the Alps, they’ll hopefully ride out the warm spell better. There’s more than a metre of snow at Val Thorens for example and the Tignes-Val d’Isere Espace Killy link is now open and it’s looking good. Chamonix is among the new batch of resorts opening this week.
Italy
Italian areas are struggling the most for snow cover of the big four Alpine nations and relying on snowmaking in the Dolomites. None the less more areas are opening including Val Gardena and Madonna di Campiglio (pictured above). The snow depoths care better in the Alps to the west with the deepest – over a metre – reported by Cervinia.
Switzerland
Swiss slopes are in good shape higher up in particular and Zermatt says it has more than 150km of runs open this weekend, one of the biggest areas in the world open so far. More and more Swiss centres are now opening and with lots of high altitude terrain most are looking good, on the piste at least, and higher up. By like the rest of the Alps more snow would be good and a big temperature drop. Glacier 3000 above les Diablerets and Gstaad is pictured this week.
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees are suffering from the same warm temperatures and sunny skies as the rest of the Alps at present but they also look good after two substantial snowfalls brought over a metre of snow to some areas on the french and Italian sides. Most ski areas are open in the region now with Cauterets (pictured above this week) in France and Baqueira Beret in Spain posting the deepest snow depths at present.
Scotland
It keeps snowing on Scottish slopes, despite warm spells in between the snow showers, and people have been hiking up to ski down. But so far no areas have opened, saying bases aren’t deep enough – hopefully it’s not long now. The cafe at Glencoe is pictured this week.
Eastern Europe
There’s been a lot of good pre-season snow in many parts of Eastern Europe and some centres are reporting their best start top the season for quite a few years.
Scandinavia
Things were not looking great in most Scandinavian areas a week ago with little natural snow cover, warm temperatures making snowmaking difficult and rain and sleet rather than snow falling. Things have improved a lot over the past few days at least in some areas with significant snowfall of up to 25cm in 24 hours at resorts including Hemsedal (pictured above on Friday) and Voss. The region’s largest resort, Are in Sweden, also opens this weekend.
Canada
The East/West split continues in Canada with more fresh snow in the West after the exceptionally snowy November, whilst resorts in Quebec have struggled to open with temperatures too warm for snowmaking and little or no natural cover. That has changed in the past 48 hours, thankfully with snow falling and areas managing to open. Pictured above is back West though with the latest powder fall at Sun Peaks in BC.
USA
Similar to Canada, snowfall in the USA has been mostly in the West once again with more healthy accumulations on the slopes of California and Colorado, but not much in New England in the East. That has changed a little though with some natural snowfall and temperatures low enough for snow making in the East as well.
