World Snow News 4: 26th July 2007

Welcome to another roundup of global snow conditions and prospects for the next seven days from www.snow-forecast.com.

July is almost over, and any Southern Hemisphere resorts that do not yet have a decent base get anxious about now. This year, all resorts in Australia and South America are in the clear with deep bases that will last through the season, but a few resorts in New Zealand still need more snow before they can open and many other resorts have limited or zero off-piste because the cover is too thin. Of course, if you are an off piste junkie there are always options if you don't mind putting in some leg-work - from the upper slopes of Ruapehu to Mt Brewster above Haast Pass and at several great Heli-operations in between, even in a mediocre season, New Zealand has fine snow beyond the confines of the resorts.

European Alps

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This week, for a change, I'll start with the European Alps where a mixed week of weather included a cold snap that caused fatalities on Mt. Blanc. While much of Europe suffers record heat, it is easy to forget that the higher peaks of The Alps (typically 1000m above the glaciers) are very rarely below the freezing level and this makes them subject to summer blizzards.

In France Tignes and Les Deux Alpes are skiing really well with sunshine and low summer temperatures. It is a similar story in Switzerland on the glaciers at Saas Fee and Zermatt. Cervinia in Italy is holding up well while the conditions at Val Senales are not great. The week ahead looks like it will bring scattered rain and snow showers at first, then mostly fine days and freezing levels between 3500 and 4000m with light to moderate westerly breezes- cold enough for the snow to freeze at night but with heavy conditions by late-morning. Several glacier resorts have closed for the summer - most recently, the summer ski season on the Pissaillas Glacier at Val d'Isere ended on Saturday 21st July and this is the last week of summer skiing at Blackcomb glacier in Whistler.

Apart from the Mt Blanc tragedy, The Alps were in the news for another reason last week. Pretty much everyone knows that last winter (06/07) was a poor one in Europe, but was it really as bad as all that? Nobody can dispute that around Christmas and New Year, snow conditions were desperate. I images of grassy slopes and idle snow cannons made the news around the globe, as if they provided certain evidence of Global Warming. However, it wasn't long before the snow arrived and although it was rarely deep at low altitudes, higher resorts did pretty well and snow depths above 2000m were average or better than average. Apart from a late start, the season was typical of the prevailing North Atlantic Oscillation that brought a lot of warm and moist air off the Atlantic. If you are in any doubt, just take a look at the record of snow-depths at a resort like Tignes (http://www.snow-forecast.com/c/resorts/Tignes/history) over the past 15 years and the NAO pattern is obvious.

Lately, several tour operators have been blaming the media for sensationalist and inaccurate reporting. Nothing new there, you may think, but what’s unusual is that most of the anger is directed towards the BBC who have been accused of running images of green slopes in news reports long after they were covered in snow and of course this probably led to cancellations and falling bookings even after snow had fallen.

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Of course most snow reports tend to be biased the other way - resort managers are prone to a bit of positive spin when it comes to reporting and who can blame them. Thankfully, the advent of webcams has made it difficult to stray too far from reality. As far as possible, we try and use reports from the Ski Club of Great Britain because these are independent. However, they only cover about 300 resorts worldwide and our website covers 1920 at the last count, so we rely greatly on users who provide snow reports in return for free membership. We also allow resort managers to update information on our site to provide them with a chance to say don't believe the forecast, we are above the cloud! Indeed, the reason we provide links to every resort page that we can find is so that users can quickly check what is really happening - predicting mountain weather is incredibly difficult and it can vary enormously over short distances and small changes in altitude.

Andes

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In a word – stunning! Last weeks’ forecast seems to have been fairly accurate, with widespread and heavy new snow falling last weekend and into the week, followed by a several fine days. Las Lenas is much improved, and Portillo just gets better and better with 70cm of fresh snow both here and at Chapa Verde. An amazing weekend to be heading to the Three Valleys in ChileColorado (170/295cm) providing excellent riding conditions. With a sunny weekend in prospect everywhere, the next heavy snowfall looks set to arrive early next week, and more especially further south. This should clear away mid-week as another anticyclone edges in off the Pacific. Sadly the unusually cold winter elsewhere in South America has been responsible for many deaths. In high altitude Peruvian villages, temperatures have fallen to -20C and many adults and children have died as a result of cold, pneumonia and other respiratory infections. Even in nearby rain forests, temperatures have fallen below 10C. thanks to the amount of snow falling over the last week. La Parva (240/290cm) is reporting 134cm of snow arriving in the last seven days alone. The sun is now shining and this will continue into the weekend. 70cm of fresh snow has fallen at El

New Zealand

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The past week brought a change in the weather with a fresh westerly wind blowing away the cold and frosty air from Inland Otago and for the first week this winter, nowhere seems to have been subjected to a Biblical deluge (apologies to any Kiwis who left for Britain last week - bad call…). The weather progressed much as forecast with bits and pieces of fresh snow about, but locals are still waiting for a big dump to kick-start the season at several club fields. It's not that these places don't have snow, they just don't have enough. The greywacke rock that erodes down to make the characteristic gullies that the eastern slopes of the Southern Alps are famous for really need about a metre of snow to cover the rocks. Places like Mt Olympus have half this depth and are still waiting, however closer to the divide, westerly winds have brought enough snow to greatly improve the upper slopes at Temple Basin and also enough to at least freshen up the pistes at Rainbow, Mt Lyford.

The Southern Lakes have typically benefited from 10-15cm of fresh wind blown snow and although this isn't enough to open up the off-piste options, it is very welcome - not least because it arrived much earlier than we had expected in last Thursday's forecast. The weather models didn't predict very much of the NW moisture getting over the Southern Alps and into central Otago which makes a change because they often predict more snow than actually falls by not modelling the rain shadow effect well enough. Let's hope that continues to be the case because for the week ahead, the same models suggest modest falls - a few centimetres now and again, but no big dumps. Mount Dobson is another casualty of the dry winter weather while at nearby Fox Peak (open at weekends) they suggest you only use old skis. Being located even further east of the Main Divide than places like Cardrona, these resorts are very sheltered from Westerly moisture. Hopefully a brief spell of NE wind forecast for Monday will deliver much needed snow.

Ruapehu managed about 25cm out of last weekend's depression, the best in NZ and it already had the deepest base too. However, the freezing level has drifted high enough at times to make the upper pistes icy and the lower runs soft whilst off piste is best avoided with a dangerous mix of ice and exposed rocks. Prospects are for a fairly similar week ahead and while there will be fresh snow about, and some sun too. Winds will be from a mild NW direction and freezing levels will be mostly above 2000m. Timing will be everything if you want to catch fresh snow and fine weather on the mountain. Meanwhile, over on Taranaki, the same system also brought snow last Friday but the warm westerlies that followed it have melted most of the new snow. There is not enough depth to open for skiing at Manganui and I’m sorry to say that the week ahead holds little grounds for optimism with yet more rain at resort level and no prospect of the kind of SW flow that gets things moving in this corner of NZ.

Australia

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Australia was once again was the right side of the Tasman to be with some superb conditions on offer last week. The next few days look like delivering more of the same. High freezing levels right now (Thursday night) are close to the tops and a front crossing the area is giving a mix of rain and sleet with snow above about 2000m and westerly gales on the summits. Temperatures however are falling, and before the front clears away, we should see widespread new snow at most levels over the next couple of days though staying breezy. Apart from a risk of a rather warm NW airstream doing some damage to snow cover mid-week, it returns to business as usual with a snowy end to the week expected.

Finally, thanks to those users of snow-forecast.com for their positive feedback on our weekly editorials. This has prompted us to publish them and maintain an archive at http://snow-forecast.blogspot.com/

Best wishes,

Rob

www.snow-forecast.com team

World Snow News 3: 19th July 2007

Welcome to another www.snow-forecast.com weekly weather round up.

Australia
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Last week's forecast for Australia worked out almost exactly as planned with new snow for all resorts and a very welcome 30cm dump at Ben Lomond in Tasmania to kick-start the season there. That same system typically dumped 20cm of snow on the mainland mountains and accompanying low temperatures have resulted in widespread reports of powder - which sounds wonderful. I can't help being a bit sceptical about the idea of powder in Australia and I really need to hear it from a visiting Canadian before I believe it! Of course this is all sour grapes really because while you lot were having a great time making fresh tracks in OZ, over on this side of the Tasman we were missing out altogether and the only powder in Kiwi resorts last week came out of a snow cannon. Meanwhile the endless frost in central Otago basins notched up another 7 days - the frost must be nearly thick enough to ski on by now…

It looks like the next week will see things settling down over Australia with high pressure dominating the forecast period. A small and intense low may brush Tasmania mid-week, but at this stage it does not look like its attendant fronts will travel far north of Melbourne but there is certainly a fair chance that the forecast track will shift enough to bring another snowy spell - so watch the forecast carefully as it gets closer. Check out the dynamic map animation at http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps/aus_dynamical.shtml

New Zealand
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For New Zealand, last week I had high hopes that with a cold high over the South Island and warm moist air to the North and East, some place in eastern New Zealand would get a decent fall of snow from the moist Easterly air
squeezed between and the charts suggested the top of South Island would be the favored spot. In the event, the mixing zone was further North than expected and it brought severe flooding to Hawkes Bay instead with only
light snow to places like the Kaikouras and presumably heavy snowfall to the tops of the Ruhaines and Kawekas but with no resorts there to take advantage. Only light snow spilled over the ranges as far as Turoa.

The good news is that the same system that brought snow to Australia has since crossed the Tasman and is quickly approaching New Zealand, so ironically the long-range part of last weeks forecast for NZ has proved more accurate than the wayward middle bit. The not so good news is that attendant snowfall quantities from this system look like they will be generally less than they were in Australia, especially for the Southern Lakes area where it has been cold and settled for more than 2 weeks. Places like Cardrona are very skilled at maintaining perfect piste and park conditions, but by the end of next week the off-piste in particular is going to need new snow quite badly.

Instead, the heaviest snow out of the current system will should be around Taranaki, Ruapehu, Nelson, Marlbrough and Caneterbury with the heaviest snowfalls for the upper slopes of Taranaki and higher tops of Kahurangi
today. It looks like some very cold southerly winds will dig under this low on Saturday with a risk snow to low levels right along the east coast of both Islands, clearing away North on Monday. A westerly airstream should
establish itself over most of New Zealand on Tuesday with mostly fine weather and rising freezing levels. There is just a chance that the mid-week low forecast for Tasmania will pass close enough to Southland to deliver
snow to Southern Ski fields late in the week and it may also be sufficient to send an attendant cold flick up the East Coast around the weekend. Fingers crossed.

Andes
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No matter how good it seems in Australia right now, South America is undeniably the place to be this season with 2m+ bases at several resorts. Last week saw plenty of fresh snow at resorts in Chile but in Argentina, only Chapelco benefited, with a relatively modest 7cm fall there. Most surprisingly, it is the giant and normally snow sure resort of Las-Lenas that has missed out on the big dumps so far - not that the skiing there is at all bad - it's just not the best of the bunch right now because this year the weather fronts have been partially blocked by the mountains.

From a meteorological point of view, the Andes situation is roughly equivalent to New Zealand with similar weather patterns leading to snowy winters. The main thing to look for is a blocking high pressure sitting off the
west coast. This directs a cold and snowy SW airstream around the bottom and as the high topples in from the west, a settled spell of weather makes for perfect skiing and riding conditions. No surprise that this is exactly
what is in store for the next week - cold and snowy until Wednesday, then sunny for the back half of the week. Perfect.

With all this fresh snow forecast, conditions on the high glaciers of Europe seem academic and after a very warm week last week as forecast, things are not nearly as enticing as they were earlier in summer when the weather
thought it was still winter. This week should see the remaining storms clearing and should cool down enough for reasonable early morning riding on the Austrian glaciers in particular, otherwise too slushy.

Until next week,

Rob

www.snow-forecast.com

World Snow News 2: 12th July 2007

Welcome again to the www.Snow-Forecast.com weekly weather round up.

We've brought the schedule for these forward a day so that people in New Zealand and Australia get to receive our editorials before the weekend.

The southern winter of 2007 continues to prove itself a very different beast to the 2006 El Nino year. Looking at mid Pacific Ocean temperature anomalies, we are not in a La Nina pattern yet and you would still describe things as neutral, but in terms of Pacific weather patterns, it is as if La Nina is well underway already. In all likelihood a full blown La Nina, as defined by water temperatures, will emerge during the winter.

As far as the prospects for the Southern ski season goes, that's very good news for Australia and South America, less good for New Zealand and probably irrelevant to South Africa. South Africa? Surely we’re joking? Not at all – there’s skiing in the Drakensburg at two small resorts and there were several days in 2006 when the tiny resort of Tiffindell at 3000m had better conditions than most in Australia! It's looking good so far this year too and looking at the cam on snow-forecast.com the resort is open right now. A sunny and fairly mild prospect for the next week, but cold enough for snowmaking at night.

Australia
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The 2007 season has got off to a great start in Australia and last week saw more of the same with new snow about once again, especially at Perisher Blue where the snow base has topped 1.5m - the deepest in Australasia; it's only marginally less at Thredbo and Mount Hotham. These are fantastic conditions for early July. Expect a few cold but fairly settled days before another system brings more snow in the middle of the week. That's so far out that the only thing we can be certain of is that things won't go according to plan, but if by some miracle the weather does follow the forecast, a deep depression will form just off the NSW coast on Wednesday bringing a major dump, especially to the easternmost resorts like Thredbo. I'm more hopeful
than confident.

New Zealand
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Across the ditch, New Zealand continues to have a winter of extremes and the latest weather news came from an intense low that crossed the far North of North Island a few days ago. That came up against a characteristic La Nina anticyclone over the South Island and between the two, the isobars were packed and a band of 150km/h easterly winds battered Northland and Coromandel and locally dumped up to 30cm of rain. Affected towns have barely finished mopping up since a similar flood 6 months ago and no doubt they will now be even less comforted by meteorologists assuring them not to worry because these are “every 1000 year events”... This forecaster was especially worried by that storm because if it had tracked just 200km south, Ruhapehu would have received an incredible snowfall and I would have had egg on my face for forecasting a fairly settled week there. Although that didn't
happen, way ahead of the main front, an unexpected little band of snow parked itself over the Mountains of NW Nelson for 24hrs but since there are no ski resorts there, who cares? Well me actually, because that's my back yard! Elsewhere in NZ, it was cold and frosty with easterly snow showers from Canterbury to Ruhapehu (11cm of fresh snow at Mt Hutt was typical).

There are no similar storms in this weeks forecast. It will start off very cold and frosty but pressure is forecast to fall and snow is expected to develop by around Tuesday on a strengthening SE wind, with places like Mt. Hutt, Mt Olympus, Porters and Mt Lyford best placed to catch most. If (big if) the deep low materialises in the Tasman as forecast, then New Zealand can expect it to arrive right at the end of the week in 8 or 9 days, but given the lack of observations in the Southern Ocean, this is mere speculation.

The Andes
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South America is a huge place and even the mighty Southern Alps of New Zealand would be mere foothills next to the Andes, but for all it's vast potential, there are not very many ski resorts and they span such a vast area it is difficult to give a quick synopsis. This is a shame because if Australia is having a great season, then the Andes are having a superb one. Last week was exceptionally cold as Antarctic air made its way north, even reaching Buenos Aires where it caused the first snowfall since 1918! The snow mainly settled on the roofs of cars, so that's where the kids built their snowmen. Further afield, temperatures fell as low as -22C in Rio Negro province of Argentina and -18C in parts of Araucania region in the south of
Chile.

Up in the resorts, the cold air did not bring any big dumps of snow, but with well over 2m of snow already in places like Chapelco and Catedral in Argentina and about 1.5m in most resorts in Chile, nobody is complaining. With plenty of new snow in the forecast this week, things are looking great - check our web pages for the details – and we have had several offers from ski people in this part of the world to help us update our bulletins so watch this space…

Europe
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Last week again saw significant new snow on most Alpine glaciers. The weather is much sunnier now and it should stay that way for the next few days, then getting slowly warmer but with an increasing risk of thunderstorms. For those of you who assume that glacier skiing in the Alps consists of a few short T bars on icy slopes, Dachstein in Austria currently has 63km of pistes open on a 4.3m base - most places in Australasia never get that good.

Best wishes - until next week,

Rob Davies - www.snow-forecast.com

World Snow News 1: 6th July 2007

Welcome to the first editorial of the 2007 Southern Ski Season from www.snow-forecast.com. We will try and make it a regular weekly feature for the rest of our season for our active subscribers and recent participants in our free days (congratulations to Tobias in Germany who won a ski book and 12 month membership the latest draw).

The Northern Winter of 2006/2007 was one that Europe and parts of the USA would prefer to forget because it barely happened. Christmas and the New Year in the European Alps felt more like October - the lower and even middle slopes were still green and where the was snow, crowds were horrendous. Afterwards, things improved: the westerly Atlantic air managed some decent dumps especially at higher resorts, but below 2000m, the season was brief. Low altitude resorts in Scotland and along the American Eastern seaboard endured marginal conditions for yet another season and now some face an uncertain future. Even so, it wasn't all bad news by any means because the Canadian Rockies had an incredible season - often with too much snow rather than too little: Some people blamed Global Warming for the odd winter weather, others pointed to El Nino and the North Atlantic Oscillation as more likely causes. We live in interesting times…

In the Southern Hemisphere, winter 2007 has started very differently to 2006, largely because El Nino conditions have faded away and there is a fair chance that there will be a switch to La Nina conditions as the winter progresses, with only a brief spell of "normal" Pacific conditions. Based on historical measures, we would expect a better than average ski season in Australia and fairly ordinary one in New Zealand, perhaps suffering a warmer spring than usual and certainly warmer than last spring when southerlies would have allowed skiing until Christmas were it not for all the construction work at Ruhapehu.

So far, things are going to plan for winter 2007, although the side effects of changing weather patterns have brought mixed fortunes. On the one hand the long drought of SE Australia has broken at last, but on the other, both Australia and New Zealand have seen some pretty wild and destructive weather with widespread floods and in Taranaki, North Island, even a swarm of destructive tornados last night as a depression crossed NZ from the Tasman Sea.

On the hills, things are looking really good in the Australian resorts with a decent base after recent dumps and a settled week in prospect with just a few showers to keep it fresh on the pistes. Conditions are improving quickly in the South Island resorts of New Zealand and it is snowing right now at many resorts from Canterbury north to Ruhapehu - all the way to East Cape in fact, as a bitterly cold SE airstreams dumps the second significant fall of the season.

This should take snow depths close to 1m at most resorts, about average for the date, and meanwhile cause problems on higher roads over the next few days, with snow to near sea level in places like Akaroa and Kaikoura. Carry chains and expect delays for road clearing this weekend, and if you do plan to ski in central NZ and are not too obsessed with making the first tracks, bear in mind there should be better weather conditions through next week. Further south around the Southern Lakes, the snow has already fallen and there is a superb clear and cold weekend in prospect.

Resorts in South America and those in the high glacier resorts of Europe have a cloudy and snowy prospect yet again and an odd combination of a mild winter followed by a cold and wet summer means that conditions in the European glaciers are probably better now than they were in January. Go figure.

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Best wishes,

The Snow-Forecast.com Team