Winter reboot, after big snow in the Alps

Over the last seven days, winter has had a reboot after big snow in the Alps. Ski resorts across the Alps have recorded over a metre of fresh. It’s been the snowiest spell of the season so far. Good news for longing out spring skiing and seeing out what’s been a turbulent Winter 22-23.

“Most (but not all) parts of the Alps have seen fresh snow over the last 24 hours,” writes WeatherToSki on 16 March. “And it still snowing across some regions today, especially in the north-west (e.g Grand Massif, Porte du Soleil, Jungfrau Region, Engelberg, Arlberg) where the rain-snow limit is between 900m and 1300m. By the end of today, some northern parts of the French Alps (e.g. Chamonix valley) could have seen 36-hour snowfall totals of between 40cm and 60cm above 2000m.”

Snowiest has been:

  • Austria’s Arlberg (60cm)
  • Switzerland’s Saas Fee (1.2m base depth increase on glacier)
  • France’s Tignes (1m+)
  • Italy’s Cervinia (1.5m of fresh has fallen in the village)

For a full report, check Snow Forecast’s World Snow Overview by the Snow Hunter, which covers the weather in all corners of the Alps and most ski regions throughout Europe (and beyond…).

This pristine corduroy is none other than Scotland’s Cairngorm Mountain resort. It’s been subzero in the Cairngorms and colder (by a way) than in the Alps. Snow has been falling for a week (22cm on Sunday 13 March), and looks like it will continue to snow lightly – at least on and off – for the week to come.

Snowiest of all has been Scandinavia, with skiing in Sweden’s Åre and Norway’s Myrkdalen, with blue-sky days between snowfalls and temperatures peaking at -5°.

Norway’s Myrkdalen Facebook image 16/3/23
Åre, Sweden Instagram image

In news:

Avalanches in the Valais Canton has lead to three deaths in the Verbier ski area – two in Val des Bagnes and one in Nendaz. Across Switzerland, 17 avalanches have been recorded with 7 people buried since the weekend.

In better news, the Fieberbrunn stop of the Freeride World Tour (watch live on this link), that had been postponed, is in full freeride swing on the Wildseeloder face (Thursday 16 March).

The Alpine Skiing World Cup finals this week are taking place in Andorra’s Soldeu – El Tarter, which has not had as much luck with fresh snow.