(Les Arcs this week)
December weather conditions in the Alps look like they're going to be warm for Christmas for the second season in a row, but two things have been different this autumn to autumn 2014: firstly the big snowfalls at the end of November and secondly periods of cold enough weather for snowmaking.
The snowfall in the last few days of November, which was typically in the region of 50cm -1m in total, gave most resorts in the alps and the Pyrenees a good base for the start of the season. Cold weather allowed most areas to power up snowmaking too and build up their bases.
The result is that whilst there's no off piste skiing due to the lack of hardly any fresh snow in December, on the pistes conditions are generaly good, and far more terrain is open than this time a year ago,
"Conditions are actually not bad at all in the Arc 2000 bowl; we've been skiing pretty much all day, every day on pistes that are well covered," said a J2Skier currently based in Arc 1950.
It's a similar story across the alps with some resorts including Saas Fee and Solden maintaining top to bottom skiing over their big verticals and Zermatt announcing today it has 150km of runs open for Christmas week.
Without wishing to paint too rose tinted a picture however, it is not an ideal Christmas week and lower elevation resorts and ski areas are suffering. Meribel for example has announced all runs to the resort are currently closed although you can reach the higher slopes and return from them on its extensive gondola network.
The Pyrenees are reported to be in good shape, on the pistes again, too and even the Dolomites, which have had almost no fresh natural snow so far this autumn, have opened hundreds of kilometres of trails with their mighty snowmaking arsenal and this weekend have World Cup racing in Val Gardena on white slopes on top of a green valley.
The picture is less rosy in Scotland, where the currently very warm British weather is preventing areas opening, and some of the worst conditions are in the snowmaking-capital-of-the-world, NE North America, where it has been too warm for snowmaking to operate and some resorts have switched to 'summer operations' with golf and mountain biking for their Christmas week guests and not a snowflake in sight.