Copper Mountain
After a quiet week on the world's ski slopes many of the northern hemisphere's top ski areas are reporting heavy snowfall in the past 24 hours.
The snow news is particularly welcome in the French Alps, where conditions below 2,000m were distinctly Springlike at the end of last week with skiers dining outdoors in T shirts at 1,000m altitude resorts and the snow stodgy and sticky.
However today's falls of 20-30cm (8 – 12 inches) has changed things dramatically for the better with Isola 2000 and Risoul in the Southern Alps, where Serre Chevalier clocked up 40cm, right up to Avoriaz and Chatel in the north reporting big falls.
The snow is not just in France though, Courmayeur and La Thuile in the Aosta Valley and another Italian resort, Madesimo, also doing well.
Several resorts in the Spanish Pyrenees have reported similar falls - good news again as cover had thinned dramatically after the promising start with heavy falls in late November and early December there.
However Scandinavia, which has seen continuing heavy snow through the first few days of 2011 while the snow stopped falling elsewhere, continues to see the most snow, with coastal Voss in Norway reporting another 40cm and Hemsedal also accumulating more snow. On our side of the north sea the latest snow in Scotland has left conditions good in Blighty still too.
The snow news has continued to be good in North America. Resorts on the East and West Coasts have also been reporting good snowfalls in the past 24 hours. In Colorado Vail, Copper and Aspen have all had more good snow news – with Aspen reporting the biggest fall of 30cm. On the East Coast resorts have reported up to 38cm of new snow, with Sugarbush claiming the biggest fall. Stowe and Smugglers Notch are also looking nice and powdery!