We'll kick right off with our usual caveat that it's way too early to predict how the snow's going to go this winter... BUT... there has been snow, at altitude, this past week and there's a fair bit more in the immediate forecast...
Snow falling toward the village in St.Anton, Austria
So here we go!
This Week's Snow Headlines
- A foot of snow on already-open glacier slopes in Austria and Italy.
- More than 20 ski areas open in northern hemisphere this weekend.
- Big snowfalls expected in Switzerland as a few more Swiss areas open.
- Temperatures warm up in Colorado, stopping snowmaking, but natural snow still falling.
- First ski area opens for season in Finland.
- New Zealand ski area to open into 'Snow-vember'
It may still only be the first half of autumn but it's beginning to look a lot like winter in both the Alps and western North America thanks to heavy and persistent snow showers on higher slopes at least.
In The Alps these have brought snow down as low as 1500m in recent days and snowfalls as big as 50cm in 24 hours in parts of the Austrian Alps.
There are more than a dozen ski areas open in Europe at present and the total should reach 20 this coming weekend with more scheduled to open.
Of course we know from painful experience over the past few seasons that early autumn snowfall does not always translate to a great start to the main season, but so far at least, the signs are good.
In the southern hemisphere the 2016 season is now all but over with just one ski resort in New Zealand still operational.
In the Forecast
There are some big falls of snow in the forecast for the next few days, for locations including Zermatt and the Monterosa areas, with widespread lighter falls across much of the European Alps.
Many falls will be to 1500 metres or below, although many areas will see a moderate warming in the days that follow. Looking a little further out, most indications are for cooling temperatures and more precipitation into the last week of the month.
As mentioned in our October report, we're aiming to push our weekly reports out earlier each Thursday - so you can better plan your weekends - but remember you can enable a daily update for your chosen resorts if you want.
Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text above this line, is free to re-publish, but must be clearly credited to www.J2ski.com with text including "J2Ski Snow Report" linked to this page - thank you.
The Alps
Austria
Austria currently has just about half of the world's open ski areas within its national boundaries, and they're enjoying a promising start to winter 2016-17 thank you very much! After some good snowfalls back in September most of the eight glacier centres already open in Austria (five in the province of Tirol alone) have been posting some big snowfall totals. Powder alarms for more than 20cm in the past 24 hours have been set off on Monday and Tuesday this week by the country's highest centre at Pitztal, as well as on the Kitzsteinhorn, at the Molltal glacier and at Stubai. The sun has since come out, bringing great powder snow conditions under blue skies – not bad for the first half of October. There are lots of early autumn events on too. Many of the glaciers are running snowpark opening weekends and or new-season-gear test festivities this coming weekend, often tied in with a kind of German beer festival.
There are big events coming up soon too including the traditional first World Cup races of the season on Solden's glaciers the weekend after next and the opening of the new €50m access lifts to the Stubai glacier the same weekend. Other already-open glaciers in Austria include the Dachstein, Hintertux and Kaunertal
Kitzbuhel plans to be the first non-glacier ski area in Austria to open, thanks to clever snowmaking, in less than a fortnight's time all being well.
France
France doesn't really do autumn skiing these days, most of the country's dozen or so resorts with glaciers are large operations where opening just a small area isn't really viable, but Tignes did re-open on 1st October and is open daily with some fresh snow (about 10cm) forecast later this week. That's good news as the base here is fairly thin at only 20cm up on the glacier, four runs are open and temperatures well below zero. Les 2 Alpes will open for it's annual end-of-October half-term holiday nine days the weekend after next. The week includes two full-on weekends of festivities including new season equipment testing.
Italy
Two ski areas - Passo Stelvio and Val Senales/Schnalstal are open at present in Italy. Both, like the Austrian areas, report good conditions. Val Senales has in fact had a foot of fresh snow so great conditions for the time of year. Cervinia is scheduled to join them this weekend, re-opening cross border skiing to Zermatt after six weeks closed since the end of the summer ski season there. It's opening the next two weekends then full time from the end of the month.
Switzerland
The coming weekend is a big one in the Swiss Alps with no less than five glacier areas expected to open to join year-round Zermatt and (open-since-July) Saas Fee. They seem to have got their timing spot on too as more than a foot of snow is currently forecast to hit high slopes in the Swiss Alps on Thursday/Friday promising a powder weekend.
The centres expected to open include Crans Montana, Engelberg and the Diavolezza Glacier in the Engadin region near St Moritz.
Next up will be Arosa, scheduled to open the weekend after next, thanks to investment in a new 'all weather' snowmaking machine.
Scandinavia
Two ski areas in Scandinavia have re-opened ready for their 16-17 ski seasons in the last two weeks thanks to the stockpiling of large amounts of snow from last winter! Geilo in Norway and Ruka in Lapland both uncovered their snow stocks and spread them out on ski runs about a kilometre long apiece – Geilo first on 30th September and Ruka earlier this week on Monday 10th October. It will be open now until mid-May 2017, the longest non-glacier ski season in the world. In addition one of Norway's three glacier summer ski areas remains open through October. Galdhopiggen currently reports a 4m base.
North America
There have been lots of reports and indeed pictorial evidence on social media feeds of significant pre-season snowfall in Western Canada and the USA over the past month. Jackson Hole in Wyoming received more than a foot of snow at the start of October and they managed to build a snowman at Whistler. Silverton Mountain in Colorado posted images of their ski guides in the powder and have reportedly run their first heliskiing trips.
In terms of the main season really getting started though all eyes are on Colorado where snowmaking has been underway for more than a week on some of the world's highest ski slopes at Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain and Loveland ski areas. It's actually been too warm for snowmaking the past few days and warm weather is expected over the coming week too so opening may not be until later this month now. That said Arapahoe Basin had a good covering of natural snowfall on Monday night even though it wasn't cold enough for machines to make snow!
Official opening dates start to kick off in the first week of November with the aforementioned resorts in Colorado as well as areas around Banff in Calgary officially opening in 3-4 weeks' time, but the race is on to open sooner than that.
Southern Hemisphere
The southern hemisphere's 2016 ski season is virtually over.
Almost all resorts in South America, South Africa and Oceania are now closed, the exception only Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand is open with both its bases at Whakapapa (2.21m/7 foot base at present) and Turoa (1.7m/6 foot base) currently operating daily (although both closed yesterday due to strong winds). Turoa will in fact remain open in to 'Snow-vember' conditions permitting, the resort says with current planned closing date 6th November.