 Poster: A snowHead
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The pre-season in the Northern Hemisphere, Oct to Nov, has so far been mixed. Some places have lots of snow, while others have none.
Overall, the pre-season has been average to perhaps slightly below-average.
Here is a summary of global snow conditions, from West to East...
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Canada: West Canada has excellent snow conditions. Lake Louise is roughly 65% open. East Canada is a little behind, with few resorts open.
USA: The Midwest has had a great early season. Big snow in Oct helped a lot. Alta in Utah is 100% open. Idaho and Washington State have seen huge falls. California, in the West, is still suffering. Mammoth is only 5% open. Conditions in the East remain poor. Killington started late and is just 10% open. Stowe is 5% open. Appalachian in North Carolina is 20% open.
Scotland: A promising early dump looks largely to have melted. Cairngorm Mountain managed to open 2 of 10 lifts today.
Scandinavia: A reasonably good pre-season in Norway, Finland and Sweden this year. Most resorts, such as Are in Sweden, are 5 - 10% open.
Andorra: Very little snow. No major stations open. Worst start for a few years.
Spain: Limited snow. No major resorts open, either in the south or north.
Mediterranean: Resorts in Portugal, Corsica and Cyprus are closed. Unlikely to open much before Jan.
France: Modest pre-season. Coverage perhaps down to 1500m, but depths are thin. Temps have been mostly above-average. Val Thorens opened late. Val d'Isere and Tignes are roughly 5% open. Most others start up in Dec.
Switzerland: Limited coverage. Snowline seems around 1800 - 2000m. Temp are high -- it was 10c in Zermatt (1600m) at midday today. Saas Fee is a creditable 20% open.
Italy: Patchy cover. A few glacier stations running, but little else. Cervinia is about 5% open up top.
Germany: Limited snow. Garmish is 5% open, mostly on the glacier.
Austria: Big snow a few weeks ago has been replaced by high temps. Some coverage is still hanging around down to 1000m. Soelden has the most terrain, with 20% open. Obergurgl is partially open on manmade. St Anton looks like it might be able to run only a handful of lifts next weekend.
CE Europe: Limited snow across Poland, Czech Rep, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Slovakia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia and Turkey. Temps are high. No major stations are believed to be operating.
North Africa & Middle East: Few stations, in places such as Lebanon and Morocco, are likely to be open much before the end of Dec.
India: The first major snowfalls have only just hit the north of the country. No major resorts known to be operating today.
China: The first major snowfalls have only just hit. Up to 3 feet has been seen in the top half of the country. A handful of resorts, such as Yabuli in the Northeast, should be able to open in the next few days.
South Korea: The season has not yet kicked off. Major stations, such as Yongpyong, are indicating that snow may arrive in the next few days.
Japan: No major resorts appear to be running. Some have delayed opening. Niseko in the north has 10cm in the village and 30cm on top, but not enough to get the lifts fired up.
FORECAST: The 10-day weather forecasts indicate perhaps more of the same. Healthy snowfalls in Midwest North America. Warm in Eastern USA. Above-average temps and modest snow across most of the Alps.
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Please remember, this summary is a helicopter view. I have almost certainly missed something. Feel free to fill in the gaps.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Aspen didn't look too great just now. Only artificial snow on the race piste by the look of it. I was expecting to see more.
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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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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Whitegold, I think the Scottish situation is a bit less gloomy than suggested and although there has been melt a good base is still there and with further dumps should be greatly consolidated.
However, looking at each area one by one; The Lech didn't have much cover to loose and certainly not enough to run their lifts at any point, although their snow cannons have been silent so far. Glenshee is a bit difficult to guage but they certainly don't seem to have much snow now.
The situation in the other centres though is much more positive - Glencoe were very close to opening this weekend but cried out due to a stormy forecast for the weekend that actually failed to materialise - they certainly seem to have enough cover to run some runs. Nevis have some decent cover by all accounts but the Gondola is undergoing maintenance and according to their website the main reason for their not opening this weekend was, like Glencoe, a stormy forecast. By my reckoning that makes 3 out of 5 that could have opened this weekend so full credit to Cairngorm for being the only area that actually took the risk and opened this weekend and you'll find links to videos and piccies in this thread so you can see that conditions were not bad at all
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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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Belgium is awful (well actually good for me because I've not got winter tyres yet), it's 12 degrees and wet, this time last year we had a foot on the ground.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Whitegold, useful summary, thanks 
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| Whitegold wrote: |
| Scotland: A promising early dump looks largely to have melted. Cairngorm Mountain managed to open 2 of 10 lifts today. |
As a point of information they ran 2 surface tows (Ciste & Ptarmigan) and the funicular on Saturday, not sure what ran on Sunday.
Apparently the Cas and M1 tow uptracks are complete and could also be used if they decided to run them - at the moment numbers on the hill are pretty small so early in the season so I guess the economics of running more tows perhaps preclude their use just now.
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lifeofriley
lifeofriley
Guest
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in niigata, japan - kagura opened on 25th november, so at least one major resort is open! there is 40cm down, with more snow forecast for this week. i've put up some pictures from the opening day on the homepage of my website, www.welovesnow.com
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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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Whitegold, good summary,hope this will be standard thing in the future ?
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Eight days of powder in the last 10 in North Idaho over 5 feet of snow, don't you wish you were here.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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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pinhead - welcome to s
Just make sure you post some ski porn (photos!)...
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pinhead, welcome to 's
yes yes...pictures please
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