 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Mother hucker, The forecast for the more eastern alpine region is for colder perhaps snowier weather next week but then very mild & dry not ideal for early January. Can always hope for a change but it seems likely to be a couple of weeks before we might see some decent conditions
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@munich_irish, I'll be in Kitz for 2 weeks but I've no drama travelling to the ziller valley for more altitude if needs be. back out mid Jan nowhere booked yet I'll just follow snow
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We have an apartment booked in Chinallion for a week starting 27th. Looking at the webcams, it's a bust.
Has Val Thoren survived this weather? I'm considering relocating the family to Orelle for four days of our stay so at least we can have a decent few days this week.
Think I'd rather lose £900 on an apartment than go there and have a gash christmas holiday.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Skeeezo, Val Thoren is looking good going by the webcams.
The 3v often gets a hard time about prices etc but their snow management is exceptional and they’ll be best placed to make the best out of a dire situation imo.
Hence the reason I bought a place in Bozel.
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| Skeeezo wrote: |
We have an apartment booked in Chinallion for a week starting 27th. Looking at the webcams, it's a bust.
Has Val Thoren survived this weather? I'm considering relocating the family to Orelle for four days of our stay so at least we can have a decent few days this week.
Think I'd rather lose £900 on an apartment than go there and have a gash christmas holiday. |
Through altitude VT looks decent, with very cold nights for the foreseeable future, the snow should be fine.
We did the same thing in Dec 2000, with a snowless Valmorel, we simply didn’t turn up and went to VT instead. [The Valmorel place was fully compensated].
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The problem is that it might look good on the webcams, but with the rain and then the freeze, a lot of the snow will be boilerplate on the piste which the webcams will not be able to show too clearly. So a bit like Spring, but a lot harder this time of year, due to the low angle of the sun and shorter days, the skill will be about timing to find those pistes that are transforming well, if at all.
That said pistes this morning were in absolutely superb condition after being groomed, and I had a really good sortie, only negative is that the pistes were the Cross country ones 
Came across this photo on a friends Strava, he's actually a guide. Looking at his track he started in Meyentzet, not far from the Le Chable Mayens de Brusson lift?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@footsoldier, Courmayeur was wet but snowing above 1,500m or so yesterday. It's due to get a bit colder. But town is rammed, albeit lots of people are not skiing.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| under a new name wrote: |
| @footsoldier, Courmayeur was wet but snowing above 1,500m or so yesterday. It's due to get a bit colder. But town is rammed, albeit lots of people are not skiing. |
Thanks - I'll have a look at that after tomorrow
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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You know it makes sense.
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| under a new name wrote: |
Whereas s-i-l reports that a friend's husband who's a pisteur up Brevent (Chamonix) has been told not to come into work for the foreseeable 
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I thought they had all hands on deck to build drainage channels for the rivers up on the Brevent?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@davidof, naw, the torrents are self-constructing.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| under a new name wrote: |
| @davidof, naw, the torrents are self-constructing. |
here you go, it was all hands yesterday apparently
Does your relative have bad breath?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@davidof, that's Chamonix's fibre install in hand then.
Not a relative. And just reporting as reported.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Any sign of temps getting back to ‘normal’ in the foreseeable?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| sbooker wrote: |
| Any sign of temps getting back to ‘normal’ in the foreseeable? |
GFS forecasting very mild until at least the 8th January, then cold air hits Austria from Russia on the 9th.
But much can change.
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Why exactly is it so warm? It’s infuriating that we had an extremely warm autumn with high pressure parking it’s ass over us for months on end, and finally after it looks like winter is here, it disappears again!
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| Snow&skifan wrote: |
| sbooker wrote: |
| Any sign of temps getting back to ‘normal’ in the foreseeable? |
GFS forecasting very mild until at least the 8th January, then cold air hits Austria from Russia on the 9th.
But much can change. |
Lovely heading to Austria on 28th until 7th January, think it’s time to change when we ski, weather over Christmas/New Year hasn’t been great last few years, haven’t seen fresh snow since 2018 and that year was a 2 week Snowmmageddon
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@südtirolistdeutsch, of course in the US they are pondering a slightly different question. In both instances the jet stream is being forced out of its more normal pattern. In the US the jet has plunged south and that is translating into very cold weather, in Europe high pressure has established itself over the continent forcing the jet north leading to extended mild weather. One explanation for this more meridional jet stream is warming of the Arctic, but it’s not something there is clear consensus on at this point.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| under a new name wrote: |
@davidof, that's Chamonix's fibre install in hand then.
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that will solve the Internet issues in the valley
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Meteo France is running the following predictions for tomorrow :
Haute-Savoie and Savoie: 20cm of fresh snow above 2000 m; rain below. Snow line rising to 2200 meters in the Isere (south) 15cm of snow in the north of the dept, 5cm in the south (Vercors)... erm only 99% of the Vercors is below 2200 meters.
Snow line should drop during the episode but it will be soggy on Tuesday.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| 2waterford wrote: |
| Snow&skifan wrote: |
| sbooker wrote: |
| Any sign of temps getting back to ‘normal’ in the foreseeable? |
GFS forecasting very mild until at least the 8th January, then cold air hits Austria from Russia on the 9th.
But much can change. |
Lovely heading to Austria on 28th until 7th January, think it’s time to change when we ski, weather over Christmas/New Year hasn’t been great last few years, haven’t seen fresh snow since 2018 and that year was a 2 week Snowmmageddon |
That’s true and it’s often the case. The Alps is far snowier and colder in Jan/Feb, than the Xmas holidays.
My first ski holiday was a school trip over Xmas 1980 at a high altitude Italian resort by the Swiss border. It was sunny, warm and arid. I’ve skied in Austria in December next to soil/grass on lethal icy ice globules from nighttime freeze-thaw.
Imho the trick at Xmas is go at a decent altitude with north facing slopes, with if you can afford it a hotel with a pool and spa to give a variety of things to do should the worst happen.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| davidof wrote: |
| under a new name wrote: |
| @davidof, naw, the torrents are self-constructing. |
here you go, it was all hands yesterday apparently
Does your relative have bad breath? |
What are they digging exactly? Trying to drain a pool of water?
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Well this is currently a thoroughly depressing thread, isn't it? Both in terms of the warm temps and rain of the last few days as well as the models into mid Jan not looking great on the temperature axis. Was hoping to be booking our first ski holiday in 5 years for Jan/Feb '23, particularly based on the positive looking mid-december snow, but think we may hold fire for a bit.
I'm looking for someone with more expert knowledge than me (it's a low bar) to tell me that these 14 day forecasts are likely to be proved to be wildly wrong, especially for the resort business owners and those that may have already booked, and hope that there's still great skiing to be had out there.
Bloody climate change and its deniers. I can tell you first hand the difference in condition and particularly the reliability of the snow we got in early 80s (no snow cannons back then) and more recent years. It's genuinely sad to have seen such tangible effect play out in under 40 years 
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You know it makes sense.
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Ah yes the golden years of the 1980s...
I remember New Year 1987 to 88 in Flaine.
No snow at all really...only the very top lifts, ribbon of piste that had been scraped from all around.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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December ‘87 was pre-snow cannons though, which seemed to be installed early-mid 90s in the bigger resorts. .
Although my memory of the 87/88 season was that it was quite good. Went to Valmorel in late Feb, so it must’ve improved over the 2 months!
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Poster: A snowHead
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| hold_my_biere wrote: |
What are they digging exactly? Trying to drain a pool of water? |
they were going to put a pipe in that trench, apparently
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@ben76, I can remember a new year trip to France in the late 1908s with no snow. We were staying in one of the lower La Plagne villages (Les Coches?) and having to drive to Val d' Isere every day to get some skiing in.
This year it seems as if the third year La Nina is not being helpful with snow, certainly as far as Europe is concerned. No sign of any change to the mild dry weather ( a few snowflakes later today for the more eastern alps) though as ever anything thing more than a few days in advance is educated guesswork but think fair to say no sign of snowmaggedddon on the horizon. Henri's forecast here is a decent summary https://wepowder.com/en/forum/topic/286460.
His final sentance is not very optimistic but realistic unfortunately
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| It also remains mild in the long term. In the GFS ensemble for Grenoble, we see the various members with a small spread, which means we can say with reasonable confidence that it remains warm. A rigorous change in the weather pattern with a decent cooling and a pack of snow is simply not shown in the weather charts yet. |
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Currently raining below 1800 in the PdS. Very wet, wind driven snow above that.
Apparently snow line is meant to drop to about 1500-1600 overnight.
Fingers crossed.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| munich_irish wrote: |
@ben76, I can remember a new year trip to France in the late 1908s with no snow. We were staying in one of the lower La Plagne villages (Les Coches?) and having to drive to Val d' Isere every day to get some skiing in.
This year it seems as if the third year La Nina is not being helpful with snow, certainly as far as Europe is concerned. No sign of any change to the mild dry weather ( a few snowflakes later today for the more eastern alps) though as ever anything thing more than a few days in advance is educated guesswork but think fair to say no sign of snowmaggedddon on the horizon. Henri's forecast here is a decent summary https://wepowder.com/en/forum/topic/286460.
His final sentance is not very optimistic but realistic unfortunately
| Quote: |
| It also remains mild in the long term. In the GFS ensemble for Grenoble, we see the various members with a small spread, which means we can say with reasonable confidence that it remains warm. A rigorous change in the weather pattern with a decent cooling and a pack of snow is simply not shown in the weather charts yet. |
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Wow, even with modern vehicles and roads Plagne to Val’D is over an hour. I imagine that in a 1908 horseless carriage, it’d have taken out your morning’s skiing at least 
Joking aside, I accept that the 80s weren’t always great snow years, but the chance of having poor conditions for your week’s trip were far less common than now, and that was without the mitigation provided by snow cannons.
Anyway, back to the thread and imminent updates of weather models to show cold temps and loads of snow.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@ben76,
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December ‘87 was pre-snow cannons though
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Not so. Morzine, for instance, opened its first network of snow cannons with central pumping etc., for season 88-89 (well it was certainly in place then). And "unreliable" xmas snow has been a thing forever.
Not denying, however, that the overall temperature trends are unquestionably on the up.
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| ben76 wrote: |
Joking aside, I accept that the 80s weren’t always great snow years, but the chance of having poor conditions for your week’s trip were far less common than now, and that was without the mitigation provided by snow cannons. |
Is that your gut feel or based on some facts? I've been skiing since 1984, I'm pretty sure we've had bad (worse?) spells than this, as others have said I've seen many pics over the years of strips of white down to the valley surrounded by green/brown and people getting bussed to different resorts.
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| kitenski wrote: |
| ben76 wrote: |
Joking aside, I accept that the 80s weren’t always great snow years, but the chance of having poor conditions for your week’s trip were far less common than now, and that was without the mitigation provided by snow cannons. |
Is that your gut feel or based on some facts? I've been skiing since 1984, I'm pretty sure we've had bad (worse?) spells than this, as others have said I've seen many pics over the years of strips of white down to the valley surrounded by green/brown and people getting bussed to different resorts. |
I agree, there’ve been plenty of snowless xmas/new year periods in my time since 1980. From memory, more often due to complete aridity and warm temperatures. Rather than rain.
Frustratingly for holidaying families, often ended by a huge dump of snow a week into January.
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| kitenski wrote: |
| ben76 wrote: |
Joking aside, I accept that the 80s weren’t always great snow years, but the chance of having poor conditions for your week’s trip were far less common than now, and that was without the mitigation provided by snow cannons. |
Is that your gut feel or based on some facts? I've been skiing since 1984, I'm pretty sure we've had bad (worse?) spells than this, as others have said I've seen many pics over the years of strips of white down to the valley surrounded by green/brown and people getting bussed to different resorts. |
2015/16 was worse
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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The frequency of poor Decembers and even early January conditions is I’d suggest higher than many tend to remember. You’d just have to look back through these threads over the years. It can often be obscured by good early snow which then gets trashed by mild weather round Christmas. Or indeed the not too uncommon great early season conditions. I’ve often had better skiing late November, early December than at Christmas.
Bottom line is early season is more variable than people would really like. Given the overall trend towards milder global temperatures that variability is likely to be greater, but non linear. But it really isn’t uncommon to have poor early season conditions, there was panic ahead of the February 1936 Olympics in Garmisch due to lack of snow (although mind you plenty of other things to focus the mind at that time too).
As for current modelling there’s not much to bring cheer out till at least the second week of January. However, FI is unreliable if it’s good and unreliable if it’s bad. A shift is as likely to come in the 7–10 day range as the 10-14 day range.
Head high, book a decent restaurant and be ready to pull a sickie when the weather does break.
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| davidof wrote: |
| 2015/16 was worse |
Hmm. If I recall correctly, Christmas was worse in 2015/6 over a wider area. This time the really acute lack of snow is concentrated in a relatively small area - i.e. the fringes of the (north + west) Alps and lower down - because it was caused by a rain event rather than stubborn high pressure.
What is worse about this season is that the outlook into January is particularly poor in terms of new snow potential.
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