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It's Freeride Week in Arc1950 this week!
This Week's Snow Headlines
- Warmer in the Alps, but more snow in the forecast.
- More huge snowfalls in Western North America, still more forecast.
- Too warm in Scotland, but more snow expected.
- Snowiest ski resort of this season passes 10m season-to-date snowfall, 11m coming up soon.
- The Freeride World Qualifier is in Les Arcs (Arc 1950) from 29th January.
Things have been warmer in the Alps this week, with the freezing point rising as high as 3000m at times and some thawing taking place. Generally clear skies and a lack of precipitation have limited the loss of snow, however, and given some great sunny skiing.
The good news is that cooler weather and more fresh snow is forecast in many areas, and that most had built up good bases during the earlier January snowstorms to withstand a bit of melt. The Eastern Alps, which had had less snowfall, have stayed cooler, so suffered less of a thaw.
The Dolomites continue to function with slopes covered in largely machine made snow and after a rare fortnight of stability Scottish areas are back to their cycle of sudden double digit temperature rises (and falls), with accompanying gales which have left the five areas closed for most of the past week. Across the Atlantic it has been a snowy picture for most ski areas; very snowy again for some in the west.
In The Alpine Forecast
The current mild spell will last a few more days, with temperatures falling through next week. The change looks to be quite dyanamic for the Northern Alps with snow now expected on Sunday, falling to around 1200m. Quantities are very unclear right now, but there could be some heavy localized falls. As we move into February, unsettled and colder weather looks to be on the cards with increasing likelihood of some decent snowfall in the first half of the month.
The Alps
Austria
Mild temperatures have meant a slight thaw and little or no fresh snow across Austria in the past seven days but the snow is set to return in the coming week with between 5 and 45cm forecast. As usual for this season the higher and most westerly ski areas are forecast to do best. Bases are holding up and even Mayrhofen which had only 0-35cm of snow cover three weeks ago still reports 10-75cm. The best depths are on the glaciers of course. Solden has over 2m up top and 15cm down in the village so its big vertical remains skiable top to bottom. St Anton has over two feet (760cm) in resort and 140cm up top. It's scheduled to get up to 18 inches (45cm) of fresh snow in the coming week.
France
There's been warm temperatures and virtually no fresh snow on French slopes too, but again things are looking to get colder and fresh snow is expected by this time next week. Bases look good thanks to the past three weeks of snow, with many of the bigger resorts in the northern French Alps reporting 1.8m (six feet) or more on upper runs, and Chamonix still reports 3m (ten feet) up top. At lower elevations the cover is thinner of course . The lowest numbers are 15cm at Serre Chevalier and 20cm at Chamonix but most areas have at least 50cm still even down in the valley and Avoriaz at 1800m has a metre lying at resort level.
Italy
There's been no new snow in Italy either and here the numbers look less impressive, particularly in the East where there's been almost no snow all season, except for a snowfall in early January. Here many resorts have snow depths in the 20-40cm bracket although it has remained colder allowing the snowmaking systems that have saved the season to keep working. It's more 'normal' out in the west where alpine resorts like Courmayeur and Cervinia have much more healthy bases with 1.8m (six feet) on upper slopes and a couple of feet in resort. Again some snow is forecast for the week ahead, but mostly modest accumulations of 10-20cm. However even that would certainly be good news in the Dolomites which remain reliant on snowmaking.
Switzerland
Lenzerheide in the Eastern Swiss Alps has reported the biggest snowfall in the alps this week – 14cm, which is particularly good news as it's one of the few Swiss areas to not benefit from the snowy deluge through much of the previous fortnight. Generally however, Swiss areas posted at best 5cm of fresh snow, most nothing. Like the other big four Alpine nations it has been warm, but like the others snow is now forecast – 15 to 35cm across the country. Base depths are generally good with Engelberg's 310cm still the deepest reported in Europe. Most areas have 30-60cm on lower slopes and 1-2m up top. Anzere's numbers are particularly impressive 140-240cm.
Scandinavia
Not much new snow in Scandinavia this week but there's been a few inches at most areas, one of the biggest accumulations reported, 9cm at the biggest centre in the region, Are in Sweden. Norway has the deepest bases, now starting to approach the metre mark at resorts like Hemsedal, with 5-15cm of fresh snow forecast across the region over the coming week. Up in Lapland there's been a few inches of fresh powder and bases are around 50-60cm.
Pyrenees
There's been no fresh snow in the Pyrenees in the last week and bases have been dropping a little, but still holding up here too and most centres are fully open with 20-80cm in Andorra, as much as 125cm on upper runs in Baqueira Beret on the Spanish side. Moderate snowfalls totalling 10-15cm are expected in the area over the coming week.
Eastern Europe
No real snowfall reported in the past week across Eastern Europe and there's not a lot in the forecast here for the foreseeable future either. However Bulgarian slopes in particular have pretty good cover 60-90cm on upper runs and at least a foot at resort level. The numbers are less impressive further north in Romania and Slovenia where a big snowfall would definitely be very welcome.
Scotland
It's been back to Scotland's usual flipping between weather extremes after a placid fortnight of consistent low temperatures. As a result ski areas have been closed for most of the past week, initially storm bound by gales and then in some cases a rapid thaw at the start of the week when temperatures rose 15C in a short period to double digits above freezing led to the snowpack rapidly disappearing. It has now been snowing again and colder weather with more snow (although also more gales) is forecast in to the weekend so it's hard to know what will be able to reopen and when.
North America
Canada
Canada's Western resorts saw some quite big snowfalls earlier this week and bases have continued to build. Fernie, which has had a foot of snow in the last seven days, is currently posting country's deepest snow depth at 2.5m, but conditions are pretty good across Alberta and BC. The big snow storms on North America's East Coast over last weekend unfortunately did not translate in to much snow further north in Quebec and areas there are still relying largely on snowmaking. Mont Sainte Anne has only 20 to 40cm of cover still.
USA
It's been another week of remarkable stories for US snowfall. On the East Coast there were the huge snowfalls last weekend leading to great conditions in more southerly states like Virginia but unfortunately not so much to the north in Vermont and Maine – although most areas there are looking pretty good now, eg 60-90cm base at Killington. On the West still more huge snowfalls (with more forecast). Resorts like Squaw Valley and Mammoth have more than 3m bases now and Alyeska in Alaska has reported more than 10m of snowfall so far this season, in fact it should have hit 11m by next week. So conditions are good to excellent across the region. There's no end to the expected snowfall in sight in the west with another 2-3 feet forecast for the coming week.