Sierra Nevada in southern Spain has posted the best December snowfall in Europe.
Spain's highest ski centre, pictured above today, also the continent's most southerly, which sits above the ancient city of Granada, not far from Malaga, is having a great week, with 20cm of snow in 24 hours on Wednesday/Thursday and another 30cm/foot in the forecast over the coming weekend. Some forecasters are predicting the area will get over a metre more snow in the week ahead.
With most of its terrain already open and one of the deepest bases in the northern hemisphere for the season so far at 1.5m/five feet, it's looking like good season ahead for Sierra Nevada, which is easy to reach from the UK via a BA link between London City airport and Granada.
Packages to the resort have also been launched this winter by Ski Weekends:
http://www.skiweekends.com/ski-weekends/resorts-and-hotels/spain/sierra-nevada
Sierra Nevada reports it plans to open 85km of runs this weekend, about 80% of its total.
The southern Spanish snowfall is in contrast to much of the rest of Europe where there has been little or no fresh snow since November.
There are signs that this situation is finally starting to change however with increasingly optimistic forecasts of up to 30cm of snow for the Western Alps and Pyrenees in the run up to Christmas and slightly smaller falls on the Eastern side of the Alps.
Sierra Nevada's snow cover is also in contrast to its 2015-16 ski season when it had almost no natural snowfall until the very end of winter and was only able to open around 20km of runs using entirely snowmaking until March.