World Snow News 24: 14th December 2007

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Summary:

• Parts of French Alps see 1m of snow in time for Christmas
• Settled but cold week ahead for Alps
• Ice Storm hits US, brings a little snow to resorts
• Conditions in Canada set to improve again
• Snowstorm forecast for Appalachians this weekend
• Fresh snow in Pyrenees at last
• Glencoe saved by Invocas
• Resorts in Lebanon and NW Spain see fresh falls - now close to opening

It is not often that mid December finds skiers spoiled for choice. The combination of a strengthening La Niña in the Pacific and a weak North Atlantic Oscillation means that most of the ski areas of the world are currently in great shape. So many areas saw fresh snow last week that it begins to look like calling this winter a good season is a foregone conclusion. For much of North America, where conditions in the States have improved dramatically during December, it's unlikely to take a turn for the worse. Even so, despite the great start, European resorts are more vulnerable to mild winds as well as long periods without fresh snow so it's a bit early to be confident about the peak months. With an intense high pressure system now building over the Alps it won't take too long before all this wonderful fresh snow is tracked out. The piste cruisers won't mind if it doesn't snow before Christmas, but off-piste powder hounds may be more interested in the snowier weather around Europe's more obscure edges.

It's simpler to mention the few places that don't have great conditions right now than list all those that do. In previous editorials I was pessimistic about the prospects for resorts in Southern California, but even here there they have had about 25cm of snow over the past week. In no particular order, here are some places that are not doing so well this season. Scotland doesn't have great snow depths and is subject to mild SW winds - probably the last thing the new owners of Glencoe wanted to hear. The Pyrenees have seen some snow at last, but the base isn't yet deep enough to be too excited about - but at least they can look forward to new snow next week. Further south, The Sierra Nevada has received very little snow so far this season, and there isn't much sign of that changing. In Scandinavia the snow is getting a bit too old and hard packed for some tastes and with little prospect of fresh snow next week, there are better destinations to aim for.

The Alps
The fresh snow has fallen much as expected. Over a metre fell in the northern French Alps. Valais in Switzerland did well too. Indeed, no major Alpine resort missed out entirely, even if Isola 2000 saw just 2cm. The present mid-week dry and cold weather has followed as forecast too, but the big mistake in last week’s editorial was predicting that Atlantic fronts would return around now. In reality they got about as far as Ireland and stalled. Instead, the ridge of high pressure crossing the Alps quickly became much more intense than expected and now it looks like it is going to sit over central and western Europe for at least a week as a cold stagnant pool of air. The worry is that once established, it could prove reluctant to shift. The North Atlantic Oscillation isn't driving depressions into Europe with the usual vigour and anticyclones over continental Europe at this time of year cool down so quickly - the combined effect risks ringing a sudden end to the pattern of frequent Alpine snowfalls just as we started taking them for granted. Easterlies with snow flurries are still affecting Austria and the Dolomites. These look like they may spread across the Italian and French Maritime Alps for a time with much more significant snow for the Apennines. These cloudy easterlies will fade away by Sunday and these southern Alpine areas will then join the rest of the Alps in having good weather and excellent fresh snow conditions - certainly the best conditions of the season so far in much of France and Switzerland where upper level snow depths are near the 2m mark. There is just a hint that if the anticyclone drifts over Britain as expected, snowy SE winds may return to the southern areas of the Alps in France and Italy next week. Atlantic fronts looks like they will make another attempt to invade Europe in 5 or 6 days as a deepening depression forms off Portugal. As that depression slides away northwards there is a risk of heavy snowfall where it comes up against the cold continental air. It is a long way off, but central and northern Spain, SW France and perhaps even southern Britain are at risk of a period of snow from Thursday through the weekend and it is just possible that the cold air will not have been overcome before Christmas. Hopefully the low pressure will track further into Europe than we expect.

Pyrenees and Iberia
The Pyrenees and Cantabrian resorts got the snow that we forecast last week. Although they saw nothing like the depths reported in the French Alps, it was nevertheless very welcome because it had been so dry for so long - something like 15cm of snow fell in Andorra, more to the west. Current models predict a low latitude Atlantic depression next week will run up along the Portuguese coast next week. Although the wind will tend south over Spain, the airmass is quite cold and we should see some mid-week snow from this system on nearby mountains like Serra da-Estrela in Portugal and the Cantabrians too. It should be sufficient to get places like San-Isidro open. SSE winds, squeezed between this low and the European anticyclone blowing off the Mediterranean may also bring further snow to the Pyrenees - more especially to the eastern resorts; places like Masella in Spain.

Scotland
The Scottish season spluttered to life a couple of weeks ago and since then the lifts have occasionally been running at Cairngorm but yesterday they were again closed because of high winds which have whipped away a lot of the snow here and almost all of the cover from nearby Lecht. The Ptarmigan bowl should have sufficient cover to allow skiing again once the wind subsides but overall it's not a good forecast for Scottish resorts because it is on the wrong side of the European anticyclone which means it is currently picking up mild SW Atlantic air. It's above freezing with severe gales on Thursday afternoon - especially in the west. This is something that might come as a surprise to people from England where it is mostly cold and frosty. As the high shifts towards Britain, we should at least sea both the wind and freezing level fall next week but any surviving snow may turn icy in these conditions. Apart from a few flurries off the N Sea, no substantial snow is forecast during the next seven days but a chance of better conditions in time for Christmas. Following a successful purchase today from Invocas, Glencoe is open for business and awaiting suitable ski conditions. We wish them the very best of luck - on a good day, Glencoe offers the best skiing in the British Isles and it is heartening to hear that it will be business as usual in 2008.

Scandinavia
We mentioned the prospect of cold and dry air edging in from the SE and that is just what happened. It was initially good news but after a few days it has left the pistes quite hard. The mild SW flow will clip northern Norway at first, but otherwise a predominantly cold and dry prospect for at least a week.

Eastern Europe
Resorts in Bulgaria are in good shape following more snow on Wednesday. Only Bansko is open right now (with 1.6m at the top) but all resorts have great conditions and can expect a period of heavy snow on Saturday night followed by a cold week with a mix of sunny and cloudy days. Neighbouring Greece is less well known to foreign skiers which is a shame because nowhere on the Greek mainland is very far from a ski resort. The local Aegean climate has thrown up a few climatic oddities like the spectacularly snow-sure (and exceptionally scenic) Mount Pilion, near Volos - a snow magnet when an easterly blows and with ideal conditions forecast, we expect heavy falls there in the week to allow them to open next weekend. Kaimaktsalan near the northern city of Florina is already fully open and is also expecting more snow through Saturday. Sunday should be perfect. Most Athenian skiers head to Mount Parnassos, above Dephi on the northern shores of the Gulf of Korinthos. A day pass costs just 13.5 Euros on quiet weekdays. There is currently 15-20cm base and temperatures are -10C and with two spells of snow expected next week; one on Saturday and another on Monday, and according to local oracles, it should open for skiing very soon. Turkey has far higher mountains than Greece and its high plateau gives it a much more continental climate with bitterly cold and often snowy winters. Scattered light to moderate snowfalls are forecast for the next week. Heaviest snow is forecast for the Balkans at resorts like Tara in Serbia and Montenegro - this snow will be carried on cold east winds first to the Apennines of Italy, and later for Corsica and Sardinia too.

Hermon in Israel has just a dusting of snow at the top and the next 7 days will see a mix of rain and snow so it probably won't open until January. Higher altitude resorts in Lebanon have a much better cover and need just one more fall to open and we expect there to be sufficient new snow this week to allow opening next weekend and if Friday's snow is as heavy as expected. Perhaps Faraya may open as early as Saturday 15th.

Canadian Rockies and West Coast
After a relatively dry spell, the winter storms are gathering again. Whistler is currently 86% open and has about 130cm of base following 10cm of snow three days ago - it's cloudy and cold and there are light flurries of snow. There is a great deal more snow in the forecast. The problem may be finding long weather-windows to enjoy it because apart from a brief hiatus mid-week when the sun may come out for a few hours, it looks like it will stay cloudy and snowy for much of the next 10 days. These systems will penetrate well inland too, bringing regular top-ups at the usual suspects in Alberta where conditions are already excellent.

American Rockies
The bare slopes of late autumn have been rapidly transformed by a succession of weather systems and in the space of 2 weeks, snow accumulations have caught up with European levels - Breckenridge and Copper Mountain now both have over a metre. The most recent notable system was an ice-storm that brought chaos to several states in the mid-west and has left many there without power as cables and branches snapped under the weight of ice. As the system moved away into Canada, rain turned to snow in the polar air that followed. Most of the weather action was west of the Rockies but many resorts there saw a light covering. There is light snow around the Colorado Rockies over the next day or so too. Settled weather following on as pressure builds next week.

California
Northern California and Nevada may have been late starters this season, but they are catching up fast. A few weeks ago it was warm and sunny but lately it has turned cold and snowy. It went straight from summer to autumn. 40cm of fresh snow was reported from resorts around Tahoe last week and the forecast could not be better - a sunny weekend for making fresh tracks before another system brings more heavy snow on Tuesday and staying cold too. Even Southern California received some snow last week, with 25cm falling on the local Los Angeles resorts - places where they don't really care if it snows as long as it is cold enough for snow-making, and happily it is - more trails are being opened daily at the local LA resorts.

Appalachians
Again, we have to look to the Gulf of Mexico to see what the weather has in store for the eastern USA and Canada and the Appalachian resorts. A deepening low is forecast to quickly track NE over the weekend bringing some especially ugly weather to a wide region - strong wind, heavy rain, snow and more ice. It's a complex weather picture that is evolving quickly so I suggest you closely watch the resort forecasts because the details will change. Stowe in Vermont is typical of resorts in the region in having between 40 and 140 cm of snow at present following a light covering of 7cm a few days ago. We expect all Appalachian resorts to have a very snowy weekend as this system passes. In Canada, Mount Saint Anne did well last week too. It has partly cloudy skies, with temperatures reaching close to -20 degrees Celsius on Thursday following 18cm of snow on Tuesday. Staying bitterly cold too. It will be Sunday before the passing storm delivers the next heavy fall of snow. Excellent sunny skiing conditions will follow across the Appalachians before a second system takes off on a similar track in a week.

Hawaii
Surely a typo? Not at all. Daytime temperatures on the 4200m summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island average -4C in the winter. It's usually well above the rain-forest clouds but easterly storms can bring occasional deep snow. With vast tracts of cinder, it only needs a moderate fall to allow skiing. It sometimes gets good enough to tempt local surfers out of the sea and on exceptional winter days the road up to the summit sees trucks ferrying local skiers and boarders who can enjoy a respectable 1000m of wide tropical vertical if conditions are right and they are right now. There was once such big storm 6 days ago and the snow cover is still excellent. Expect cold weather and low temperatures and snow showers over the next 7 days.

World Snow News 22: 2nd December 2007

First, sincere apologies to users for a patchy service from Snow-forecast at the end of last week. Our website comprises many hundreds of thousands of pages, most of which usually update at least two or four times per day. In order to balance the load, this information is distributed between several servers. On Thursday, one of these computers developed an intermittent fault that prevented some updates. We didn't spot the problem right away. We moved its content to a spare machine but it took some time for this change of address to be recognized by web routers. Some users have written in to say that they saw a mix of missing, old and up to date content between Friday until Saturday lunchtime - we are very sorry if you were affected. Static maps were worst affected, resort forecasts slightly affected and dynamic maps were unaffected. As of Saturday lunchtime, all systems were running normally and all users are viewing the current forecast on the new server. Should a similar problem occur again, we are confident that we have found a solution for making new servers visible much faster.

Summary

• A change to stormy Westerly winds for Europe
• Heavy snow expected across northern Alps
• Very mixed weather for Scandinavia and Scotland
• Snowfall for the American Rockies at last
• Pyrenees to see first heavy snow in a week – perhaps.
• Whistler is the place to be next week

In meteorological terms, December marks the official start of the northern winter. This year, over Europe we have seen a switch away from the decidedly wintry weather pattern that dominated autumn to a much more autumnal weather pattern. Whereas autumn was characterized by cold northerlies and record breaking snowfalls across the Alps, this has been replaced by disturbed westerly Atlantic air-stream – often stormy over Britain and Scandinavia. If this had happened more than a week or two ago, the attendant warmer temperatures and rain would have melted much of the Alpine snow cover. Arriving later, the Atlantic flow is now cool enough for snow rather than rain to fall across much of the Alps. Very little of this disturbed weather reaching the Pyrenees where it remains mostly settled for another week. Across the Atlantic in America the weather patterns have improved. A weather system developed over Baja last week and tracked NE across the continent to the Great Lakes. This system has brought a very welcome fall of snow to many Rocky Mountain and Appalachian ski areas as well as the vast number of little ski areas in between.

The Alps

Last week was mostly fine but the weather is quickly becoming steadily less settled. Not everywhere was dry last week – Flachau in Austria reported 20cm of fresh snow on Tuesday. Many more Austrian resorts have opened this weekend leading to fresh tracks for many, even if the snow is a few days old. Snow depths remain very impressive for the time of year.

With low pressures tracking well to the north of the Alps, the forecast is for the heaviest snow to be confined to the northern areas of the Alps where 20 or 30cm falls will be typical. Favored areas will include many parts of the French Alps that have missed out on the record November dumps in Austria and Switzerland. For example, there is just 50cm of snow on the glacier at Tignes compared with over 2m at Kaprun. Both will see new snow very soon, but it will be windy. The heaviest snowfalls will be on Monday with freezing levels about 1500m in France and 500m lower further east. It looks like there will be a brief mild and settled spell for all mid-week before further westerlies blow in more snow and falling temperatures later in the week.

Pyrenees and Iberia

High pressure has been centred near the Pyrenees since summer. Last week, I mentioned that there was a chance of a snow-bringing Easterly flow to be established before Atlantic air pushed in but these hopes were unfounded. With high pressure once again located around Iberia, forcing fronts to track further north, we don't see much prospect of significant snow for another week, apart from a few bits and pieces, mainly in the west at places like Formigal. Snow cover at the resorts is currently very sparse compared with the Alps. It looks like a secondary low may form in the Bay of Biscay on Saturday. That's a long way off, but if this goes according to plan it will bring very welcome snow both to the Pyrenees and the Massif Central. Even the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain should also see snow from this system. Further south, a dry week in the Sierra Nevada. Still no sign of winter for Serra da Estrela in Portugal and the more snow-sure alternative Sierra de Bйjar across the Spanish border.

Scotland

Autumn may have been fairly settled but Atlantic gales are the theme for the week ahead. With low pressure nearby, it is going to be a very unsettled week. Freezing levels will vary greatly as the wind varies between mild SW and cold NW so expect a mixture of heavy rain and snow showers with a notably mild day on Tuesday. Later in the week the air tends much colder and periods of heavy and drifting snow should resume filling in between the snow-fences. Don't be too surprised if Scottish resorts open for skiing next weekend. The snowy weather will again extend right down the Pennines at times but we don't presently expect enough snowfall to allow any of the small English club fields to open yet.

Scandinavia

With a westerly flow Scandinavia is seeing the same unsettled picture as Scotland but unlike Scotland resorts are already open and places like Voss have 50cm of snow. The mild winds on Tuesday and Wednesday look like they will lift freezing levels above the resorts and bring some unwelcome rain before more windy and snowy weather returns later in the week. Even then, with low pressure staying to the West, it will remain milder than recently.

Eastern Europe

We expect widespread moderate falls of snow across mountain regions over the next few days. Heavier snowfalls for Turkey later in the week too but becoming drier further west. Borovets is reporting just 10cm of snow right now but the good news is that it is -7 degrees about the tops and there is fairly heavy snow forecast for Tuesday.

Canadian Rockies and West Coast

Whistler continues to enjoy good early season conditions with about 1m of snow across the upper mountain. We are expecting very heavy snowfall and low temperatures this weekend, not clearing until Tuesday or even Wednesday when conditions should be perfect for at least 4 or 5 days. Inland, around Banff, there are even lower temperatures with a prospect of powder snowfalls this week.

American Rockies

A weather system brought up to 23 cms (9 inches) of very welcome snow to parts of the Rockies last Wednesday. Steamboat (35cm), Jackson Hole (55/95cm) and Solitude all saw 10–15cm. Since then, ski resorts across Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico have benefited from a second and larger winter storm that is currently tracking across the continent – on Saturday morning Vail has reported 10cm of fresh and it is still snowing there. Previously snow-starved Durango reports 22 inches of fresh snow this morning and plans to open for the season tomorrow (Sunday). As it moves away east, this system will deliver a mix of snow, rain and freezing rain to much of the mid west and the Appalachians. The heaviest snow (more than 30cm) is expected to fall at small resorts west of the Great Lakes; obscure little ski areas in Minnesota that cater mainly for locals. Watch out for another mid-continental low to develop on Thursday and bring more snow to the American Rockies. Very cold right now around Tahoe but with mild weather mid-week before it turns much colder again. No fresh snow expected until Thursday and even then, just a dusting.

Appalachians

The snow affecting the mid-west will clip the inland Appalachians on Sunday but the heaviest snow will track through the Great Lakes region and later Quebec and Nova Scotia. That's good news for dozens of minor resorts that hardly anyone has heard of! Of the more famous resorts in this region, Mont Tremblant is well placed to see fresh snow from Sunday through Tuesday, followed by very low temperatures. They already have a 20–50cm base with a few cm of fresh snow on top.

The Snow-Forecast.com team