Still looking like winter in Banff Sunshine Village, Alberta, Canada...
Snow and cold, and warm and sun, and more snow... it's that time of year!
The Snow Headlines - 6th April
- Alta and Snowbird pass 800" (20.3m) total season snowfall to date.
- Tignes reaches 4.5m base – Europe's deepest.
- Ski areas in Japan close early due to warm weather and poor March snows.
- More pre-season snowfall in New Zealand.
- Big-name ski resorts including Sun Peaks and Telluride close for season.
Spring snow for many places...
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World Overview
There's been more snowfall in the Alps over the past week, heaviest in the north and west, on higher slopes last weekend.
Temperatures have also been around or below freezing at altitude leading skiers at some big resorts like La Clusaz to report "mid-winter conditions". It's set up many of the well-known resorts with plenty of terrain above 1800m in a strong position for Easter and for those remaining open right through into May.
However smaller, lower centres are realising the end of the season is nigh and have been closing down already, with many more set to follow them after the Easter weekend.
It's a similar story, although rather snowier, across the Atlantic.
Still more heavy snowfall has been reported in the Rockies even as we start April and yet more snowfall records have been set. But at the same time more and more ski areas have ended their seasons, many even as they have snow lying deep on the ground.
Elsewhere ski areas in the Pyrenees have had a good fresh snowfall but continue to battle warm weather on thin cover. It's perhaps slightly better in the Balkans, where Borovets reported a half-metre snowfall earlier this week, but less good in the Scottish Highlands where there's very little left open. Scandinavia arguably has the best of the snow in Europe with cool temperatures keeping it fresh and most centres will be fully open until the start of May.
Europe
Austria
About half of Austria's ski areas have now closed for the season, including some of the lower-lying big-name destinations. Most of the well-known resorts are still open for Easter weekend and some higher centres, including glacier destinations like Solden (posting the country's deepest snowpack), will open beyond that.
There has been some fresh snowfall and colder temperatures than recently, with St Anton posting 10cm at the start of this week. It's been dry and sunny for most Austrian ski areas since Monday though.
France
French ski areas have seen the best of the snowfall for a second week with the heaviest falls last weekend, but snow beginning to fall again now after a sunny period midweek.
It's also fairly cold, staying close to freezing to quite low levels. Higher altitude resorts like Val d'Isere, one of those open until May, were among the big winners from the current conditions. Nearby Tignes also got more snowfall on its higher slopes and is posting Europe's deepest base still at 4.5 metres on the Grande Motte glacier.
So it too is looking good for French skiing into May.
Italy
North-western Italy saw the best of the fresh snowfall at the start of this week with some good accumulations on higher slopes at ski areas along the western border with France and northern Switzerland.
Cervinia got a good refresh and La Thuile, linked to La Rosiere, has the deepest base in Italy, now over 3 metres thanks to all the fresh snowfall.
Many Italian areas will close after the Easter weekend but several dozen will continue to the latter half of the month and a few into May.
Switzerland
Swiss ski areas also got their share of fresh snowfall, particularly in the west of the country.
Here too though resorts have begun closing for the season with more due to follow suit after Easter Sunday.
It has been dry while staying fairly cool most of this week but snow is just beginning to start falling again, particularly on higher slopes in the north and west.
Verbier got over a foot of fresh snowfall and most of the 4 Valleys are still open. Saas Fee, posting the deepest snow in the country now at over 3 metres, has had more than 50cm of fresh snowfall.
Scandinavia
Scandinavia continues to be the area where most centres are fully open and with fairly fresh snow cover too – although there's not been a great deal of new snow to report this week.
Temperatures have been creeping up a little bit too but remain close to freezing, so there's not much thawing yet.
The region's largest resort, Sweden's Are, remains 90% open, as does the second largest, Trysil in Norway and indeed most others.
Pyrenees
There's less and less terrain open in the Pyrenees, despite cooler temperatures and even the best snowfall for several weeks at the start of this week.
Most of the bigger resorts in the region remain open but they're down to around half of their full areas available to ski, mostly the upper mountain and with fairly thin cover. So a definite end-of-the-season feeling here.
Scotland
Sadly, although there has been more cold weather and snow flurries at times, there's been a further deterioration in Scotland's snow cover and there's very little open for the Easter weekend.
There's just a handful of runs left at Cairngorm, Glencoe providing lift access to touring terrain and Glenshee possibly offering nursery slopes for the holidays but not certain if they'll be able to (they don't have any ski runs open at the time of writing).
The Lecht had also hoped to use their all-weather snowmaking to do the same but in the end, decided it was too warm even for that over the Easter weekend.
Eastern Europe
There was some fresh snowfall in Bulgaria at the start of the week, giving a refresh for higher slopes, but springtime is inevitably marching on, with more smaller centres ending their seasons and less terrain open at bigger resorts.
That said, Slovakia's largest ski area, Jasna, still has almost all its runs open for the Easter holidays and about 70% of the terrain at Bansko is open too.
North America
Canada
Conditions remain good across Canadian ski slopes but here too ski areas have begun closing down even with deep snow lying and fresh snow falling and most will have closed after the Easter weekend.
Some though, including Sunshine and Norquay at Banff, Whistler in BC and Lake Louise in Alberta will stay open to the end of this month or into May.
East Coast resorts have been posting some of the fresh snowfall this week, up to 30cm, but some ski areas here also saw rain as temperatures rose briefly midweek.
USA
There have been still more big snowfalls reported in the Western US with heavy snowfall and high avalanche danger temporarily closing some resorts in Utah at the start of April.
Two of these, Alta and Snowbird, are continuing to break snowfall records, passing the 800 inches (20.3 metres) mark at the end of last week.
A growing number of areas have extended their seasons in response to all the snowfall but many more have started closing for the season anyway.
Mammoth, with the snow lying more than 8.5 metres deep up top, continues to post the deepest base in the country (and the world).
East Coast resorts have had some fresh snowfall too, particularly on higher slopes to the north, but have also seen a few warm days to give the full springtime effect.