Will the snow come?

I went skiing this weekend. Skied maybe for 1 hour just to tick the box. Good to make turns but I prefer turning on snow that feels less like concrete. Supposed to get colder this week and hopefully it will start snowing soon too.

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Have to say am a little bemused by all this talk of where is snow. Right not we are no worse than any other season and glaciers are much better off due to wet summer and a lot of early high snow.

Historically if you go to a resort in Europe without a glacier skiing before 3rd week of December you are taking a gamble. Long term forecast is looking like freezing down to 1000m around 8th of December and snow from 12th onwards for Northern Alps.

Am off skiing on Wednesday in full knowledge that good food, wine, some time in gym or hiking is how my time will be spent. Many times better than work!

I agree with what you say about it being a gamble in early December and admire your calm acceptance of the situation but most people book a ski holiday to go skiing. They can go to the gym or go hiking any time! I understand their concern; I would be be if I'd booked for early of mid-December (many resorts have postponed their opening dates). I'm bemused that you are bemused!

Fingers crossed it gets better soon!

Just because people booked their holidays doesn't mean it will start snowing. December is a very risky month to book your only or even one of the few ski holidays unless you don't mind other activities but skiing. At the moment even with the snow conditions are not worth a trip and not even worth carrying skis to the lift. But it's not unusual for December. Everyone wants and hopes for snow but there isn't anything anyone can do about it. Book higher resorts and book resorts with glaciers if it absolutely must be in December or just book later in the season.

To get back to the OP's question the short answer is nobody knows, its not possible to forecast the weather in the alps with any degree of accuracy more than 3 days.

The alps are divided by the main alpine ridge which extends from the Mediterranean coast just west of Savona to Leopoldsberg near Vienna.



The main alpine ridge divides the Alps into three main regions (the northern, the southern and western Alps). When a storm comes in from the west, most of the snow will fall in the western Alps, from the south in the southern Alps and from the north in the northern Alps. Last season lots of the storms came from the south so Italy got a lot of snow and the parts of Austria north of the ridge got less than the normal amount of snow.

This Autumn most of the snow that has fallen so far has been brought by southerly storms so most of the snow is in parts of north west Italy and south west Switzerland and in some parts of the French alps that profit from a phenomenon called a "Retour d'Est". There is another area of low pressure over the Gulf of Genoa at the moment which has brought another 15cm to the slopes above Cervinia and about 10cm to Saas Fee and Zermatt.

The weather in Austria has been very mild, November was the warmest since records began almost 250 years ago, so snow making has been very limited. Temperatures are now starting to fall so they should be able to fire up the snow canons and with a bit of luck they will get some natural snow before Christmas. St Anton is normally a pretty snowy place, one week I was there it put 3m down at village level. There was so much snow on the roofs that they had to shovel it off to stop them collapsing.

As has been mentioned going on a skiing holiday in early December is very risky, to minimise the risk go to somewhere with a glacier or one of the places known for having early snow like Livigno (free lift pass) or Sulden am Ortler.

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Have to say am a little bemused by all this talk of where is snow. Right not we are no worse than any other season and glaciers are much better off due to wet summer and a lot of early high snow.

Historically if you go to a resort in Europe without a glacier skiing before 3rd week of December you are taking a gamble. Long term forecast is looking like freezing down to 1000m around 8th of December and snow from 12th onwards for Northern Alps.

Am off skiing on Wednesday in full knowledge that good food, wine, some time in gym or hiking is how my time will be spent. Many times better than work!

i hear you but when you drop a few grand on flights from Australia and the same again on a hotel its always nice to see some snow on the ground nice and early. it does not help that i forgot to cancel my Niseko snow reports and the Japanese snow machine is up and running

I think one of the most promising things is that the temperatures have dropped, so at least if it is only 10-20cm coming down in each shower it's staying,and the snow cannons can now get going.Lets hope the next 2 weeks stays cold and we get a few decent showers for the sake of all the Xmas week skiers.

fingers & toes crossed !

Snow showers don't bring 10-20 cm of snow, 1-2 cm is a typical amount of snow that falls with snow showers. For 10-20 cm it takes a proper snow fall not a shower.

I think you know what i mean !!!