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Overview
With sunny weather right across the Alps today (Wednesday), all eyes will be on the skies tomorrow and Friday when some more significant snow is due. The heaviest falls are forecast in the northern French Alps, Switzerland and western Austria.
With more resorts opening this week, snow conditions in the Alps remain excellent for early December in most places, but Austria in particular. The main exceptions are some parts of the Aosta valley and southern French Alps, and Italy is still variable generally, although some decent skiing is still possible in these regions on a mixture of natural and man-made snow.
France (Alps)
After a bright couple of days, some moderate snowfalls of between 30 and 40cm are due over much of the French Alps on Friday and again on Sunday. The best French options for anyone looking for some early December skiing remain Val d’Isère/Tignes (35/80cm) and Val Thorens (80/110cm) but a number of other resorts are now also open on a daily basis including Alpe d’Huez (30/50cm), Montgenèvre (50/80cm) and, in the far south, Isola 2000 (70/85cm).
More resorts will open this weekend, including Courchevel (39/89cm) and Méribel (30/89cm), and decent snowfall is forecast for the Three Valleys on Friday, along with much of the north-western Alps. La Clusaz (10/110cm) has some of the deepest upper slope snow, but is a bit thin at lower levels. Another 30cm dump should spruce up the runs in time for this weekend’s official opening. Other resorts, such as Morzine and Avoriaz are not due to open for another couple of weeks, though if snow conditions keep filling in the way they they’ve started, you will likely see more partial openings before the official dates.
Austria
Snow conditions in Austria are excellent for early December with further daily top-ups due from Thursday into the weekend and early next week.
Kaprun (50/210cm) with near-perfect conditions on its glacier runs, tops the Austrian snow depth chart, and has 90% of pistes open, as does Solden (55/190cm). St Anton (40/125cm) currently has 60% of pistes open, as does Soll (20/80cm) in the SkiWelt, while lower-lying Kitzbühel (40/70cm) has 40% open.
Italy
Although some Aosta Valley resorts such as Cervinia (10/135cm) are a bit under par, at resort level, the Dolomites are mostly in pretty good shape, despite modest snow depths. Alta Badia (30/60cm) now has 70 runs open, while Kronplatz (15/50cm) has 95 available. Just over 25% of lifts are turning at Cortina d’Ampezzo (20/50cm). And 13 out of 20 lifts are open at Madonna di Campiglio (20/60cm) in the Brenta Dolomites, where snow conditions are described as ‘very good’. Here again, some moderate falls of up to 30cm are predicted across much of northern Italy.
Switzerland
Snow conditions remain pretty good across most of the Swiss Alps right now, with plenty to bring out the early season skier.
Engelberg (40/305cm) still boasts the best overall snow figures in the Alps, with great cover all the way down to resort level. And Les Diablerets (30/260cm) is posting similarly impressive figures early winter figures.
St Moritz (8/42cm) can offer a decent extent of pistes (over 100km) despite more modest depths. In the south-west, Zermatt (5/66cm) now has 72km of runs available.
All Swiss resorts can look forward to further snowfall of up to half a metre later in the week, peaking overnight Sunday/Monday.
Scandinavia
Voss in Norway has had some good early December snow, with its weekly accumulation reaching 70cm today, with more to come by the end of the week.
Pyrenees
Top Spanish resorts Baqueira Beret and Formigal are both open but looking to top up the hard-packed early season cover. A week that began with clear skies looks set to end with a decent drop of half a metre from Friday to Monday for Formigal on the Spanish side. Baqueira Beret, to the east, is expecting around 35cm.
On the French side St Lary, where half the pistes are open, is expecting a modest top up of 30cm from Sunday.
Scotland
Four of Scotland’s five ski areas were open over the weekend, including Glencoe (10/30cm) albeit with just 30% of runs open. A milder start to this week has affected the snow quality, but as anyone keeping an eye on UK forecasts will be aware, winter will return with a vengeance from tomorrow.
Rest of Europe
Garmisch (20/170cm) in Germany has 20% of runs open – all at glacier level – and this should be topped up on Friday night/Saturday morning with another 10cm, but Eastern Europe is mostly quiet at this time
USA
It’s been a relatively slow start to the season over there. Vail (48cm upper base), for example, is still heavily reliant on artificial snow with no major dump on the horizon. Similar story at Aspen (66cm upper), but Saturday sees official openings for two of its four mountains.
Utah has seen around 30cm of new snow in Alta. However, with just 5% of runs open, a lot more is needed if the resort is to kick fully into gear in the near future.
For better snow look further north, where Jackson Hole (66/142cm) has seen around 20cm of new snow and now has around 30% of runs open.
Over in California, Mammoth (20/60cm) is due to open on 13 December, while Heavenly (20/60cm) has just a handful of lifts and trails currently open. And out East, Stowe (30/90cm) also has around 30% of trails open.
Up in Alaska, Aleyska will have another go at opening this weekend. A mix of heavy snow at altitude and rain at lower levels has dented early season skiing, but, well, it’s only a matter of time and there are some big dumps due at upper levels the rest of this week.
Canada
It’s been a decent start for BC favourite Whistler (155cm upper) which has 40% of runs open, and plenty of sunshine, clear skies and mild temperatures are expected over the next few days..
Further inland, Lake Louise (86/132cm), three-quarters of lifts and runs are now open and good skiing is to be had on packed powder. Here too, however, there’s no more snow on the immediate horizon.
There’s a bit more snow around over in the east, where family favourite Tremblant has 61cm on its upper slopes and 30% of pistes are open but we’re still awaiting the next big fall to show up in the forecast.
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