How much snow needed for resort to open ?

A snowHead

How much snow is generally needed before a resort can open i.e. how many cm snow on-piste, natural or man-made?

Any factual replies most welcome!

If anyone has specifics the resort I'm concerned about is Les Gets - I fly out to my pricey accommodation there on Dec. 19th Skullie

A snowHead

It really depends on the resort, many of the lower resorts runs are on fields so need less snow than on runs which are mostly rocks when not covered by snow.

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@5RED, Les Gets is a resort with many runs on pasture, rather than rocks, so won't need huge amounts of snow. They will definitely be open - it's getting cold, some proper snow is forecast and the resorts will be able to make snow. Trouble is, there's no certainty at this stage that temperatures will stay low until Christmas. Fingers crossed.

One problem with resorts only partially open is that runs are likely to be busy, in the holiday weeks. If that's the case, it's a good idea to start early, have a snack around 1130 am and then ski through lunchtime, when loads of people will be crowding into the restaurants. And be well away from the ski school meeting places before the afternoon lessons begin.

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by the way, there are lots of Les Gets experts on snowheads - if you edit the thread title you'll get more specific replies.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@5RED, as mentioned, it very much depens on what's underneath and how much snowmaking there is. Height, location and aspect play into it.

No definite answer.

Les Gets/Morzine mostly is alpine meadow so doesn't need so much to get started, but equally bear in mind that Xmas (less so) and New Year week are high traffic and so the snow will suffer faster.

15 cms of natural powder might let you ski down a few times but wouldn't get close to allowing opening for traffic.

30cms of man made concrete would last a few weeks, if it's cold.

But you're asking, "can it change enough between now and then to make it work?" Really, aren't you.

Generally, yes, it can. Take 2011-2012. Almost nothing until Thursday before week before Xmas then an astonishing quantity in a few days. And it didn't really stop snowing for quite some time...pretty awesome season.

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@rob@rar, yep, although I can't recall or be bothered about dates so it might have only been a few days.

After all it is free

@under a new name, looking at my photos it snowed a lot through the first three weeks of December, then Christmas week had some lovely sunny days. Just about perfect, including one of my best ever days on skis lapping around an empty itinerary in Les Arcs in knee deep light snow on the 19th! And all this followed on from a very nervous couple of weeks at the end of November/beginning of December when the cows were still grazing on the pistes in the 3V. I just wish the forecast for the next week or so looks as good as it did at this time in 2011.

@rob@rar, I think it was snowing higher up and more south of Cham so you were getting stuff we weren't. I don't have so many photos from then but my recollection was that Cham was looking pretty grim and we had first clients (also friends) arriving Sat 17th and while we'd skied dust on crust in Les Houches the week before (nothing else was open) the heavens opened sometime on the Thursday - this was the Friday eve in town

And this was the Sunday morning, in our garden just above Chamonix town, with a 115cm pole

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Needless to say, the silver linings had clouds, e.g. clients' transport, burst snow chains, etc.

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The forecast for les gets is looking far more promising now than it did a few days ago. Temps below freezing at resort level, allowing them to fire up the cannons. Light snow starting Friday/Saturday and perhaps building to something more substantial by the middle of next week. The jetstream seems to be shifting, bringing weather systems in from the NW. The likes of the PDS and Chamonix usually do exceptionally well when the weather comes from this direction, especially at this time of year when that cold air has a big warm lake to go over...

This is still a wee bit far out but hopefully in a couple of weeks you'll be wondering why you were worried

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Thanks all for the wise words!

@Nelbert75, very interesting perspective normally absent from forecast sites, thanks.

No problem @5red, my fingers are crossed as much as yours as I'm heading to Morzine myself shortly.

Last year I was out there and a guy who has spent many seasons was telling me about this, so I can't claim as my own. Apparently with Lake Geneva one side, plus the Mont Blanc massif behind, creates something of a 'snow trap' in between, where the PDS just happens to be. When things play out like I described above Avoriaz receives huge snowfall, I believe a couple of seasons ago it was the snowiest place in the Alps. Hope I've not just jinxed it mind Confused

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

PDS @Nelbert75, gets rather more snow (and sometimes rain) than its situation would normally suggest. At low altitudes I'm convinced after 9 seasons it definitely has more in the streets than Chamonix. Mind you, that's not where you want it ...

A snowHead

A lot of the Swiss and French resorts above 2000m are virtual quarries in summer. They need a metre or more of cover and as the Schumacher incident shows, can be dangerous off piste if you are very unlucky. If its cold enough a low Austrian or French or Dolomite resort is probably a good bet for early skiing.

Below 1800m however, particularly in Austria, they are grassy 'Alps' and 6inches of consolidated snow is fine. Here in the Pennines we ski on rough grassland and a hard frost is sufficient!

A snowHead

30cms of decent snow on pastures is fine less than that and the piste bashers cut through the snow into the soil and wreck it, in Wengen where there are bastures below about 6,000 ft I generally say 3ocm at resort level and 80-90cm at upper levels gives acceptable skiing, any more than this gives great skiing, but there is one run that needs 1.5m minimum (because the rocks are that big) and high winds can rip off the snow from pistes leaving bare earth

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Sorry to drift the thread, but I've frequently heard of the "Lake Geneva microclimate", quoted when explaining the relatively high snowfall in the Portes du Soleil. I read a stat somewhere that Avoriaz has the highest annual snowfall of the Alps, twice that of Zermatt. Of course, there are aspects of Zermatt which are ignored in that statistic, e.g. whist Avoriaz and Zermatt are both at mid-high altitude (1800 vs 1600 resp.), the skiing in Zermatt is higher and the snow hangs around longer.

I thought that the high precipitation of Avoriaz and generally the PdS was solely due to their position on the leading edge of the Alps for cold, wet weather systems arriving from the NW. It's like the old "water table" diagrams we used to get in school, i.e. wet air is forced upwards by mountains, it cools, condenses and rains etc. This makes a lot of sense to me and seems to easily visible. Living in Lausanne, there are many days of the year, summer and winter, when it's sunny here but across the lake there's a huge cloud over the PdS.

However, I can't see how Lac Leman is big enough or warm enough to have any effect at all. I think that the "Lake Geneva microclimate" is because of the PdS's position near a lake with a name, not because of any effect of the lake.

There's another "Lake Geneva microclimate" touted in Montreaux, which is warmer in winter than most places around here and hence a popular area to be old if you're wealthy enough. I think this is because there are very high hills sheltering Montreux from the northerly bise and possibly even creating a foehn effect for northerlies, plus the lake would have some effect in warming the shore in winter.

Would any weather geek on here please advise?

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@snoozeboy, sounds plausible. The snowfall explanation is what I always believed as well.

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Interesting stuff. Either way the NW pattern is looking increasingly established, and this is good news for anyone heading there for a hard earned festive break.

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well unfortunately Warth-Schröcken is not so unknown....is linked with Lech - Zuers and that made everything goes high (prices etc) except snowfalls.... rolling eyes

After all it is free

And here is a list from the Met Office of the top 10 snowiest weather stations in the Uk.

A few surprises here !
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/top-10/snowiest-places

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Lake Geneva/Leman not big enough to affect the weather? How big would it need to be? It takes nearly an hour to drive along it at mostly motorway speeds. I haven't measured it but looking on the map it appears bigger than any other in that part of Europe, with the possible exception of Konstanz which looks about the same.

I'm no meteorologist but certainly the northern Italian lakes have an effect, they absorb heat in the summer and release it in the winter. Hence the palm trees along the lakeside. The Romans noticed this two thousand years ago. Geneva/Leman is slightly further north, but it is far bigger than any of the Italian lakes.

Also, and bear in mind I am not there that often, when I drive along the lake in cold weather there is always a haze over it which I always considered was due to evaporation of warm(er) water into dry air, and this, as it is pushed south and rises, would get colder and precipitate wouldn't it?

Sorry for my cod-science and I stand to be corrected by anyone who actually knows how it works Very Happy

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This is my point. I doubt that the area of lake Geneva is big enough to produce a significant precipitation from it. I reckon the "lake Geneva microclimate" regarding snowfall is due to the prealps position on the leading nw edge of the alps, rather than evaporation from the lake. People just call it the lake Geneva microclimate, because there are other microclimates around the lake, e.g. that allows palm trees to grow in montreaux.

It's a big lake, sure enough, but is it big enough to produce snow from?

Re the palm trees in montreux, it's a combination of the lake's warmth in winter and the shelter from the hills to the north. There are no palm trees in Lausanne that I know of, which is also next to the lake, but less sheltered from the bise.

Help!!

How much snow needed for resort to open ?

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