The weather is at last about to change in Europe. An active frontal system looks set to push in from the Atlantic around the 1st or 2nd of January to bring significant precipitation - and falling temperatures will ensure that means snow down to the valley floor in many areas.
The best of the snow is likely to fall in the Northern French Alps, Western Austria, the Aosta Valley in Italy and Switzerland - with some areas looking good for a right pasting! Accumulations of up to a metre, for some resorts, are possible in the first few days of the New Year. The Southern Alps should get at least a top-up but it's unclear at this stage whether the weather system will bring much-needed snow to the Pyrenees and Andorra.
Even better news is that this particular system could usher in low pressure conditions likely to persist through the first half of January - so there could very well be a lot more snow over the next two weeks.
Avalanche
We'll leave you with a word of caution if you're skiing in January - the recent warm weather has left a base of potentially unstable snow; so there will likely be an elevated avalanche risk. We quote from Avalanche Expert Henry;
As I mentioned last week, once the snow does fall, the new snow layer will be on top of a very weak layer that is out there now. This weak layer is fine by itself, but once it has something on it, it is really unstable.
Still a few days to go yet - so the forecast may change completely - but it is looking rather better than it has been!