J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

And they'll be staying in Cervinia until they open the road again! Hope the beer doesn't run out.

J2SkiNews wrote: In most cases it should be more moderate than last week they say, but some areas – including Val d'Isere-Tignes, the Milky Way, and Zermatt-Cervinia may get up to a metre more snow in total.

We have had up to 100 cm above 2500 m since yesterday evening and a further 70 to 120 cm is expected to fall by this time tomorrow. The avalanche danger level is currently at 5 and people have been told to stay indoors. Cervinia, Champoluc, Saas Fee and Zermatt are now cut off and 70 people had to be evacuated from the Hotel Relais des Glaciers in Champoluc earlier today.

Yes, it's a new ticket introduced last autumn. It's valid on all the routes shown on the map on page two of this pdf https://www.sbb.ch/content/dam/sbb/de/pdf/abos-billette/abonnemente/ga/karte-geltungsbereich-ga-halbtax-stand-dezember2016_d_barrierefrei.pdf

Many ski resorts are still closed and some are cut off, and in some places food supplies are running out. The weather should start to improve tomorrow, but at the moment the situation remains critical. People have had to be evacuated from their homes and many roads & railway lines are closed. As it has rained up to approx. 2200m we have also had floods and landslides.

A large avalanche hit the (already closed) road from Täsch to Zermatt today.

It was one of 30 avalanche detected by the avalanche warning systems installed along the route. https://www.geopraevent.ch/project/avalanche-radar-zermatt/?lang=en

Hopefully the Saturdays changeover won't be as chaotic as it was last week.

The severe weather warning for Switzerland has now been extended to Friday. Tomorrow the snowfall level will rise to over 2000m. The railway line from Visp to Zermatt has been hit by an avalanche and the police are now starting to close roads because of avalanche danger.
Somebody has posted a video of today's skiing conditions at Zermatt on Youtube, bet you are all glad you're not here!

The cold front has arrived so the wind speeds will increase considerably. The Aosta regional government has issued a severe weather warning http://cf.regione.vda.it/allerte_meteo.php high winds and lots of snow at high altitude resulting in the avalanche danger increasing to level 4 http://appweb.regione.vda.it/DBWeb/bollnivometeo/bollnivometeo.nsf/vista_e/$first?OpenDocument&L=_e& Take care.

The weather over the next few day looks like it will be grim, lots of precipitation accompanied by hurricane force winds. There will likely be lots of damage and disruption and probably a few fatalities. Some forecasters are saying that the storm could be the worst since Lothar in 1999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclones_Lothar_and_Martin By Thursday the avalanche danger level is expected to reach 4 over a wide area and numerous medium-sized to large avalanches are to be expected. https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanche-bulletin-and-snow-situation.html?no_cache=1#snowpack

Believe it or not you can. During the 'Winter of Terror' in 1950 - 1951 a series of 649 avalanches killed over 256 people in Austrian and Swiss villages. In 1954 a total of 125 people were killed by avalanches in Austria 57 of whom were killed by 2 avalanches that hit the village of Blons. During the 'Avalanche Winter' of 1999 17 people were killed in avalanches in Switzerland http://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-science/item/781 and 31 people were killed in the village of Galtur in Austria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Galt%C3%BCr_avalanche