Kicking Horse, BC, Canada, got a pre-season dusting this week...
Winter's knocking on the door for the northern hemisphere!
The Snow Headlines - October 20th
- We are in the final days of the southern hemisphere's 2023 season.
- Colorado ski area says it's "past halfway" with pre-season snowfall and snowmaking.
- Icelandic ski area grooms run for ski tourers, after big autumn snowfall.
- Colder temperatures in the Alps, some snow, but glaciers delay opening.
- Scottish ski centres see first proper snow covering this autumn so far.
- Fresh snow reported on ski slopes in the Czech and Slovak Republics.
- Europe's most southerly major resort, Spain's Sierra Nevada, gets a little snow.
- Snowfall in Bulgaria and other eastern European ski nations.
We see snow in the forecast...
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World Overview
The long-awaited dip in temperatures in Europe has led to a tentative boost for those excited for the pre-season build-up.
Things have continued to be the most wintry up in Scandinavia, but the start of this week also saw Austrian resorts posting pictures of fresh snow covering their higher slopes and Eastern European nations from the Czech Republic down to Bulgaria have seen their mountains turn white too.
After snowfalls at the end of last week, it has been a quieter week for much of North America with lots of sunshine and warmer temperatures putting a halt to the new season build-up. But that's changing again with colder weather and fresh snowfall as we publish this week's report.
Europe
Alps
There's finally a change for the better in the Alps and indeed across a wider area with snowfall reported on high slopes from as far south as Sierra Nevada in Spain to Spindleruv Mlyn in the Czech Republic.
Temperatures finally began dropping at the weekend with Lech and Schladmng in Austria among the first to report sub-zero temperatures and snow falling by Sunday afternoon. It has stayed cold with more light snowfalls since.
The snow has arrived a little too late for some of the glacier areas that have again delayed opening though, until they've had enough fresh snow to make it possible. Solden and Stubai glaciers delayed planned weekend openings while the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz and the Titlis above Engelberg won't be opening this coming weekend as planned either, the latter rescheduling for November 4th.
So far, two other Austrian areas, the Kitzsteinhorn above Kaprun and the Molltal in Carinthia both still say it's on for this weekend.
There are otherwise the same six glacier areas open as a week ago. Three in Austria's Tirol – Hintertux, the Kitzsteinhorn and Pitztal; then Saas Fee and Zermatt in Switzerland and Passo Stelvio in Italy.
Cervinia has also re-opened its access to the skiing above Zermatt and says it will now remain open year-round, without the spring and autumn closure periods of the past.
Zermatt/Cervinia, Saas Fee and Hintertux each have 12-15km of slopes open, for the other three it's just a few miles of slopes each at present. No ski areas are expected to open in France until the final weekend of November with Les 2 Alpes earlier abandoning plans to open for a fortnight of glacier snow sports from this coming weekend.
Scandinavia
Northern European nations have continued to see snowfalls and low temperatures over the last week as the promising build-up to the new season continues there.
Levi and Ruka in Finland have been operating for a fortnight now and they've had plenty of fresh snow on top of the slopes created using snow recycled from last winter.
The Galdhopiggen glacier in Norway remains open too and even Blafjoll up in Iceland groomed a natural snow run on Saturday so that ski tourers and split-boarders had a run to ride down. Things should continue cold and snowy for the week ahead.
North America
Most of the good snow news in North America came just after we completed last week's report as cold weather and natural snowfall across the west of the continent continued.
Up to a foot of snow fell in some high parts of the Rockies and ski areas as far south as California and New Mexico got a decent covering.
Since then though things have rather warmed up, in the daytime at least, and there's been lots of sunshine across the region, so some of these early gains have been lost. But the resorts in the running to be first in Colorado, and maybe the US, to open have managed to make snowmaking progress and the likes of Arapahoe Basin and Keystone say they're now halfway to having enough snow to be able to start opening.
So it's mostly a case of keeping everything crossed for another temperature drop and snow dump soon. That is already starting to happen with ski areas around Banff reporting heavy snowfall as we complete this week's report.
Southern Hemisphere
The southern hemisphere's 2023 season really is into its last few days now with just a few centres still operating, and all of them (at the time of writing) saying this coming weekend will be their last.
Although Australian ski centres have had a second October snowfall in the past week, all have now been closed since September.
However, resorts have operated into October in the Andes and New Zealand. South America's biggest ski centre, Catedral near Bariloche in Argentina, announced it would stay open another bonus week to the 22nd and the two centres on Mt Ruapehu on New Zealand's North Island, Turoa and Whakapapa, also plan to stay open until then. So it's these three areas still operating.
Two other New Zealand centres, Mt Hutt and Cardrona, closed last weekend, reporting fresh snowfall on Saturday for their final days.