Snow Forecast Summary - 17th November 2011

This week saw recent patterns continue; the effects of La Nina brought more snows to North American resorts, whilst the European Alps saw very little snow.

European Weather and Snow This Coming Week

Much of the Alpine area will continue to experience above average temperatures for a few more days at least, although temperatures are dropping and most forecasts indicate seasonal averages prevailing within a week or so. The weather will remain settled and (unfortunately) dry for most areas into next week.

European weather continues to be dominated by a blocking system of high pressure to the East, which brings milder than usual conditions to most of The Alps. Longer range forecasts are hinting at movement and we have our fingers crossed.

Some of the early-opening resorts have announced delayed openings this week - including Davos and Val Thorens - although glacier skiing is available at several resorts in Austria, Italy and France.

We appreciate your help!

This time of year is always frustrating; snow reporting can be a little patchy as resorts prepare for the season and, although we do our best to get you the latest information, the occasional gremlin gets into the data. We aim to bring you the most up-to-date data we can, and we now include pictures from over 3,000 webcams on our pages so you can see for yourself. If you spot anything amiss, or we don't include your favourite webcam, please let us know - thank you!

Just an update to this - the various forecast models do seem to indicate a breakdown of the current patterns early next week.

Still low confidence but it does look as if something's afoot.

There is very little agreement (between the different runs of the models) about what happens beyond that, so we'll have to wait and see.

The Wigglies for Geneva show a drop in temperature (and a little snow) for the 23rd but you can see how the predictions (the different coloured lines) are all over the place after that...



The above image is a snapshot of the forecasts today (18th November). For the latest, see the current Forecast Ensemble for Geneva.