Welcome to our global snow round-up for October; very much a quiet point between the seasons... but all about to change.
Saas Fee this morning
This Month's Snow Headlines
- September snow across Northern Hemisphere raises expectations for 16-17. Too soon?
- French ski season starts.
- Kitzbuhel aiming for October opening.
- Norwegian area opens for season using last winter's snow.
- Ski season almost over in southern hemisphere.
After a few glacier ski areas tentatively opened in mid-September, October is when the 2016-17 season should really get moving with the first ski areas scheduled to open in the first half of the month in the high peaks of the Rockies and the high latitudes of Scandinavia.
Among the areas aiming to open in the next few weeks, that you might not expect, are famously low-altitude-major-resort Kitzbuhel in the Austrian Tirol, thanks to snowmaking technology and Geilo in Norway, thanks to stockpiling snow from last season. Several more glacier areas are also scheduled to start their 16-17 seasons in October so by the end of the month several dozen areas will be operating.
October also marks the end of the southern hemisphere's 2016 ski season - most likely. Virtually all ski areas are closed now in Australia and South America; with only a few of New Zealand's ski areas still open. One may choose to soldier on into 'Snow-vember' as it does every few years... we don't know yet if 2016 is going to be one of them.
In the Forecast
As is usual for this time, there's nothing hugely exciting to anticipate... although it does look as if a very wintry blast is going to push some way into the Eastern Alps this week. There should be some nice webcam views as a result of temperatures falling 15C and bringing snow... watch this space!
We'll likely revert to our Weekly Snow round-ups in a couple of weeks time and will be aiming to push them out earlier each Thursday so you can better plan your weekends!
Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text above this line, is free to re-publish, but must be clearly credited to www.J2ski.com with text including "J2Ski Snow Report" linked to this page - thank you.
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE (for South, please see below)
The Alps
Austria
Austria as usual has the most ski areas to choose from as we enter October; as many as are open in the rest of Europe put together at this very low point in the season.
Some significant fresh snowfalls were reported in mid-September. The country's highest lifts at Pitztal opened one Saturday morning early last month and received 20cm of powder buy the end of the day – not bad considering it was still summer. But otherwise snow depths are not yet too healthy, with most areas only having 20-40cm of mostly old snow at the start of the month. Besides Pitztal, centres open include year-round Hintertux, the Molltal Glacier, Dachstein, Solden and Kaunertal. The Kitzsteinhorn is due to open mid-October and the Stubai re-opens with its multi-million new cable car on 21st October. Kitzbuhel hopes to open some terrain thanks to snowmaking the next day on the 22nd.
France
There were no ski areas open in France during September, the only one of the big four Alpine nations with no glacier skiing open. However that changes as of October 1st when the ski area on the Grand Motte glacier at Tignes re-opens for its nearly eight month long winter season through to May 2017. It'll be the only French area open until Val Thorens re-opens late November, except for a nine day period up to 1st November when Les 2 Alpes opens over the schools October holidays with ski tests and events on the glacier there.
Italy
The number of ski areas open in Italy is slowly increasing. Only Passo Stelvio was open in the summer but it was joined by Val Senales at the start of last month and later in October Cervinia will re-open its skiing and cross-border terrain linked to Zermatt will be available once more. It's open for the middle and penultimate weekends of the month (October 15/16 and 22/23) and then full time from the final weekend (29th) onwards.
Switzerland
Switzerland's two stalwart summer ski centres – Saas Fee and Zermatt – will be joined by several other glacier resorts plus, more surprisingly perhaps, non-glacier ski destination Arosa Lenzerheide, over the next few weeks meaning more than half-a-dozen Swiss centres should be open by the end of October, second in number only to Austria.
Saas Fee and Zermatt currently have around 1.5m of snow lying on their slopes, healthier than numbers reported by their Austrian neighbours, so are looking good. The Crans Montana, Engelberg and Diavolezza (Near St Moritz) glaciers should be opening for the middle weekend of October (15th/16th) then a fortnight later it's Arosa Lenzerheide (conditions permitting) and a sixth Swiss glacier, Glacier 3000 near Gstaad.
Scandinavia
October is an interesting month on Scandinavian ski slopes as we have the last of the summer ski areas still open, the first non-glacier ski areas in Europe hoping to open, and even a Norwegian resort (Geilo) that has stockpiled last winter's snow all winter and opened a kilometre long ski course across the brown Autumnal hillside on 30th September. They did the same thing last year and it was very popular apparently. Galdhøpiggen on Scandinavia's highest mountain at 2469m is the summer ski area that's scheduled to stay open to the last weekend in October.
Meanwhile a number of northerly latitude areas are scheduled to open from mid-October so long as it's cold enough for their snowmaking systems to fire up. Ruka, traditionally boasting the longest ski season of a non-glacier ski area in the world, may be first to open – they're aiming for October 10th.
North America
September was quite an exciting month across most of western North America as there was plenty of new snow up on high peaks from Colorado up to Canada which clearly set American pulses racing. The dominant weather factor, El Nino, credited with bringing heavy snow to the far West last winter has been supplanted by La Nina, this autumn and winter which most resorts seem to think (hope) will bring colder air and more precipitation further east across the continent, so most are portraying it as a good thing. Many areas posted snowy pictures through September with Lake Louise showing one of the most impressive, with a foot of fresh snow one morning. Mammoth had a covering down to resort level and Silverton Mountain in Colorado even pictured snow patrol workers making first turns in patches of powder.
October always sees the annual battle to be the first centre to open in the US. There are no official announcements of October opening plans as of yet, but high resorts like Loveland and Arapahoe basin hope the be snowmaking from the start of the month and may open by mid-October if it's cold enough. Mt Hood's Timberline ski area in Oregon also often claims to be the first to open but it hardly closes all year round so it's a bit of an unfair competition there as it has a permanent snow field. In Canada the first ski areas are due to open around Banff at the very start of November.
Southern Hemisphere
The southern hemisphere's 2016 season – generally reported to be quite a good one overall after a shaky start – is all but over. Virtually all areas in South America, Australia and New Zealand have either already closed or plan to this first weekend of October or at the very latest, next weekend.
The only possible exception is Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand which may stay open in to 'Snow-vember' – that hasn't been announced yet. With 2m lying on upper slopes at present it certainly looks feasible.