Alpe d'Huez has leap frogged fellow French resorts Chamonix, Les Arcs and Flaine, which have all been posting the deepest snowpacks in the world at over 4 metres for some weeks, to report a 5 metre base at the 3330m summit of its ski runs. It's the first in the world to report a 5m base this season.
The jump in its snow depth came as resorts in the western Alps reported up to a metre of snowfall on high slopes over the last few days, with Switzerland's Glacier 3000 area near Gstaad posting one of the biggest accumulations.
But it is a very mixed picture as ski areas with slopes below about 1800m reported up to 36 hours of non-stop rain in the latter half of last week, so altitude is currently playing a big part.
Avalanche danger levels are currently widely at level 3, "considerable" in the Western Alps, widely regarded as the most dangerous due to the likelihood of skiers and boarders "risking it" when they don't at level 4, or "high".
Last winter ski areas in the Alps suffered below average snow depths, again particularly below 1800m, and the first 4 metre base was not achieved until late March at Tignes, which also reached 5 metres after many other ski areas had closed for the season in late April, so snow depths appear much further advanced this winter, at least at altitude.
Usually the deepest snow any major European resort reports is 6 metres by March-time with Andermatt, Engelberg and sierra Nevada all having reached this number, but that wasn't achieved anywhere except on Norwegian late spring glaciers, last season. Some resorts in Asia (Japan) and Western North America have reached 8 or 9 metre depths in springtime in recent past seasons.