J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

Alpe d'Huez bought 70 new high output snow cannons in 2017, at −4° they can produce 6000 m3/h. As soon as the temperature is low enough, they will fire them up. They have to, without a base of artificial snow they are unlikely to get to the end of the season without closing the lower runs. These new snow making systems are capable of making enough artificial snow to cover the pistes they serve to a depth of up to 70cm in about 100hrs.

They have also invested in a PistenBully SNOWsat snow depth measuring system to ensure that it gets spread out to the required depth.



I wouldn't be too concerned about the resort snow depth reports as they are single point measurements taken in places where snow is known to accumulate and when natural snow is in short supply they often add a bit on, but I would keep an eye on the temperatures.

I would look for a resort that already had some snow, the conditions at Cervinia look pretty good at the moment.

I wasn't just referring to G-Force's post!

This is a comparison of the outputs from several forecasting models for accumulated precipitation at Whistler over the next 10 days.



As you can see GFS is predicting more than the others, it pretty much tallies with the others until the 28th but then for some reason it takes off. However, as all the models are predicting that there will be some precipitation its likely that there will be some snowfall up on the mountain, but as temperatures are forecast to remain above freezing it will likely rain in the town.

Even a very well-resourced organisation like the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research that can call on the resources of MeteoSwiss, the Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology which has developed its own high-resolution forecasting model for the Alpine region https://www.meteoswiss.admin.ch/home/measurement-and-forecasting-systems/warning-and-forecasting-systems/cosmo-forecasting-system/cosmo-1-high-resolution-forecasts-for-the-alpine-region.html?query=Cosmos only issues snow forecasts for 2 days https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanche-bulletin-and-snow-situation.html#avalanchedanger forecasts for longer periods usually have a probability of below 50% i.e. they are a guess.

Not just the original poster, I have seldom read such unintelligible tripe! Skiing is very complex, you can't explain how to do it on an internet chat forum.

Australia has some very good instructors and as they are not constrained by the European regulatory system, they can actually teach people how to ski. Check out Reilly McGlashan's and Paul Lorenz's websites and YouTube channels. There is some more detailed information in their Projected Productions videos https://www.projectedproductions.com/

https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-ch/kids4free.html

Good luck!

Your welcome Volf! Bizarrely I have only had to gen up on EU directives because I live outside it the EU. If I still lived in the UK there would have been no need.

The current problems facing the catered chalet operators in France stem from the revision of the Posted Workers Directive 96/71/EC which originally came into force in 1996. The revised directive seeks to ensure parity in wages and working conditions between posted and local workers. The original directive wasn't enforced that well, the enforcement of the revised directive will be much stricter and there will be larger fines.

The employees must also fulfil certain conditions, the directive is intended to facilitate the sending of existing employees to carry out work in other EEA countries and Switzerland, the UK TOs recruit people solely for the purpose of working during the ski season. One of the conditions to be fulfilled by the employees is "To not have been recruited for the sole purpose of being sent to France" https://travail-emploi.gouv.fr/droit-du-travail/detachement-des-salaries/posting-of-employees

After Brexit when the UK becomes what the EU terms a 3rd country things will become even more difficult. The chalet companies will probably have to set up companies in France and obtain seasonal work permits for their employees. The procedures for doing this are to be found at the EU immigration portal https://ec.europa.eu/immigration/ Because of the all the extra costs involved it's difficult to see how a lot of the operators, especially those at the budget end of the market will be able to survive.

UK ski instructor qualifications will also cease to be recognised, fully qualified instructors who are already established in the EU should be OK, but trainees and newly qualified instructors probably won't be allowed to work there. There may also be issues with the recognition of transfer bus driver's licences.

Snowmaking only borrows the water, after use it is returned to the environment more or less as was. Where possible the lift companies build storage reservoirs in the ski areas (Austria has about 480) and pump the water from these to the snow cannons and lances, in the spring it melts and returns to the environment. This is a typical layout:



I doubt that resorts in the alps would ever contemplate using water from sewage treatment plants. Many of them are located down in the valleys so it would be much too expensive to pump it back up to the resorts and the local populations would probably go berserk if it's use was even mentioned.

It does require quite a lot of electricity, around 3.5 kWh per cubic metre. Some of this is comes from HEP plants, but as their output is drastically reduced during the winter (no meltwater to feed them) a lot of it comes from other sources. Snowmaking also produces a fair amount of CO2, the production of the amount required to cover a hectare of piste is reckoned to produce around a tonne of CO2