The mountains are caked in snow, from the Alps to the Pyrenees, the Scandes to the Scottish Highlands
Let’s start with the Pyrenees, which have had half a metre in 48 hours. And it’s about to double…
Resorts in the western Pyrenees have seen most snowfall – think Formigal, Astun, Gourette and Tourmalet. And, listen to this:
The snowfall is caused by the jet stream being directed full on the Pyrenees. It causes snowfall that may leave behind 1 to perhaps 1.5 metres of snow in two phases with a break on Wednesday.
WePowder
Formigal kicked off the week skiing on 50cm fresh (falling over Sunday and Monday) with a further 90cm forecast to fall steadily through Wednesday. More powder will follow later in the week, but at a more moderate pace.
Baqueira Beret has 20cm of fresh fall (17 January) and is forecast to pull in between 10cm – 20cm each day this week – good news for hosting the Freeride World Tour competition on the last weekend of January.
Alps
It’s a new dawn, with a cold snap arriving in the Alps (that’s here to stay) and with it, lots of snow.
The northern French Alps are raking it in. Chamonix has recorded 40cm in 48 hours at mid-mountain, and the lower resorts suffering the most from warm temps just a week ago are back in the game: Morzine and Les Gets have 20cm of new snow; Samoens and La Clusaz with 25cm and 35cm respectively since Sunday morning.
From west Switzerland throughout the western Italian Alps, to the Dolomites in the east, around 10-15cm of fresh snow is expected today.
But enough of the numbers. Check in with Snow Forecast or We Powder to get true snow depths and the full reports, and check out a few of these snowy scenes.
THE SCANDES
Jump to the Scandinavian Mountains and Norway’s smashing its own 100-year-old records. While the Alps brought in the New Year with warm, wet weather, Hemsedal pulled in near to 2 metres of fresh recording its deepest snow cover in a century.
In fact, Fall Line’s editor-at-large, Jonny Richards, has just returned from a ski weekend in snowy Norge – that’s right, a quick, easy and cheaper-than-you-might-think Norwegian weekender, timed just right… Here’s what he has to say:
The Highlands
In Scotland it’s snowing again (or is it still…?). Bottom line is there’s a tonne of snow. Glencoe has all uplift running and the whole mountain open. Take a look at the Glencoe webcams here:
