The Snow is Back in the Alps

After a period of warmer weather and slightly diminishing bases in the Alps some healthy snowfalls have been reported over the past 24 hours.

Chamonix has reported one of the biggest snowfalls so far with 40cm of snow in the last 24 hours, whilst Val d'Isere and La Plagne in France and Lech in Austria say they've had a foot of fresh (30cm).

Most other resorts in Austria, France and Switzerland have reported 20 – 30cm in the last day too. Alpe d'Huez (pictured above) has had 27cm so far.

The snowy weather is expected to continue for the next few days.

N Alps, rained until approximately 5am this morning, just as well it has stopped as freezing levels are predicted to rise to >3000m next 2 days so any precipitation would of been pretty destructive even for high resorts. Planned to ski in Courmayeur today but seems they got very little fresh snow and forecast upto 17degC in town this afternoon.

Fair amount closed for the day in Chamonix. It feels that this year they have really taken to closing lifts which allow people to access avalanche prone terrain e.g. Cornu closed as people have been ignoring the closed sign letting the access the piste in Col du lac Cornu which has avalanche danger from above, even if the route to Planpraz is fine. Almost total disregard for safety of others means that perhaps even France has started to babysit; having given up on trusting people to use their common sense and follow the few rules they try to set.

There is good news with last 48hrs having really boosted the base.
1800m reporting 45+cm
3000m reporting 60+cm

If you need convincing of the risk of wind slab, take a look a Rifugio Torino Nuovo 3375 - Monte Bianco facebook page. Looks like they had fun trying to exit this morning.

Consensus that worst snow anyone on mountain had ever skied. Freezing level must have gone well above 3000m as there are streaks on snow where water/rain has been running down over surface. Basically a mega crust, had to traverse and kick turn way of one slope was so bad. Looking forward to this lot being buried on Wednesday.