The US ski states of Colorado and Utah have reported big snowfalls since Christmas Eve.
The two states had suffered a mostly warm and dry November and December and were badly in need of a good snow dump for the holidays.
Santa seems to have delivered with, for example, 36cm at Breckenridge in the past 26 hours and now 58cm (nearly two feet) since Christmas Eve.
The base depth there is now shown as 112cm with dry sunny weather now in the forecast, but cold too.
Although there is still some way to go until normality returns, the region's ski areas which in most cases had only been able to open 5-20% of their full terrain to date, are now opening at least some more runs – in Breckenridge' case they report 44 of their 187 runs are open so far but that number is now expected to increase.
Conditions are similar further north where Snowbird in Utah (pictured top) reports 66cm (over two feet) of fresh snow since Christmas Eve and a 109cm base but only 20 of its 169 trails open so far.