It’s been a remarkable few days for snow in the Alps, and there’s also been snow fall all over the world!
The second big snowstorm in the past two weeks has been dumping huge volumes of snow on Alpine peaks, particularly above 2,000m. The snow is still falling at many areas but accumulations of up to 1.5m have already been reported. Snow has also been reported to lower elevations in places. Verbier plans to open early for the season this weekend and other areas like Saas Fee and Solden say they expect to open outside their core glacier slopes in the next few days – also well ahead of schedule.
In many areas the storm has now passed and the slopes are looking spectacular for the weekend, where the lifts are running…
Along side these big snowfalls in the Alps the first significant snow in the Pyrenees has also been reported and on Scottish hills. In North America snowfall and low temperatures from coast to coast has allowed areas to open in the East, Mid-West and West and the ski season has also started in Canada.
Unexpectedly there have also been significant snowfall in New Zealand where it’s the middle of spring. Only one area is still open there and plans for this to be the final weekend of the southern hemisphere 2014 ski season.
Austria
(Hintertux, 40km and a 1150m vertical now open)
Although now taken over by the USA after two months of having ‘the most ski areas open of any one country in the world,’ Austria’s eight glacier ski areas are still more than any other country in Europe. They were already looking great with fresh snow from the last snowstorm a fortnight ago under blue skies and sunshine and now the latest snowy deluge has brought base depths up to 2m at some centres.
France
With Les 2 Alpes finishing its nine day late-October opening last weekend Tignes is the only area currently open in France once again. That hasn’t stopped lots of centres posting images on social media showing how much snow they’ve had. It’s not clear if any will open early, otherwise it’s hopefully good news for the coming season.
Italy
Italian areas have reported big snowfalls too with up to a metre of fresh cover on glaciers. Cervinia is now open daily and skiing over the border from Zermatt is on offer. Val Senales reported 80cm of fresh snow and Passo Stelvio is also open.
Switzerland
Saas Fee (above on Thursday, sunny now) plans to open terrain down below the glacier this weekend with heavy snow down to resort level. Zermatt is also looking good and the Diavolezza Glacier and Glacier 3000 are also open. Verbier (below) will open limited terrain three weeks ahead of schedule this weekend.
Scandinavia
Ruka and Levi (below) in Lapland remain the two centres so far open. Levi will stage World Cup races the weekend after this.
Pyrenees
We’ve received reports of good pre-season snowfalls in the Pyrenees. This image below came in from Baqueira Beret which says 20cm has fallen in the past few days.
Scotland
Scottish hills have also been turning white with new snow this week. Here’s Cairngorm:
Canada
Lake Louise (below) is the first resort to open in Canada/ It’s due to be joined by other Alberta areas including Mt Norquay, Nakiska, Marmot Basin and sunshine in the next week.
USA
The US now has more areas open than any other country – the first to reach double digits for open areas. The little Tahoe Californian ski areas of Mt Rose and Boreal open today, as do Keystone (pictured above) and Copper (a week later than planned) in Colorado, joining already open Arapahoe basin and Loveland. Ski areas in North Carolina are also open along with Killington in Vermont and Sunday River in Maine. We also rather liked this picture of autumnal snowmaking at Stowe….
New Zealand
There’s been lots of fresh snow in the southern hemisphere too where the last resort still open for the 2014 season, Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand, pictured above yesterday, is about to start its final weekend of the season.
