It's snowing heavily in the Alps this morning. The picture above is from Verbier.
"A big, wet and windy NW system, very unusual for us this time of year, is certainly scouring ridge lines and coating the deep couloirs above Verbier with perhaps a metre of snow," a hopeful local told J2Ski.
The snow is good news for the dozen or so glacier ski areas already open in the Alps, which will be joined for a week by Les 2 Alpes on Saturday.
Assuming it is not followed by a super warm spell in the coming month it is also good news of course for all the other areas as they prepare for the 2014-15 ski season.
Resorts already offering glacier skiing include Tignes, Saas Fee, Cervinia (at weekends), Zermatt, Stubai, Kaprun, Pitztal and Molltal among others.
Solden has been icing its glacier slopes ready to stage the first World Cup racing events of the northern hemisphere's 2014-15 season at the weekend so it is not yea clear whether the new snow will be good news or bad news for that going ahead smoothly.