Many European resorts are rushing to open early as some US resorts struggle somewhat. After what's been called a "once in a lifetime storm" over the eastern alps, which then proceeded to move west...
many european resorts are opening earlier than planned, whilst in a turnaround, some of the Utah resorts famed for their early snow
such as Alta are having to delay their opening after early falls melted.
Great conditions are reported by snowHeads at
Les Gets, Champery, and
Chamonix, with
reasonable conditions on the Glacier at Tignes. Meanwhile snow is reported down to village level in
Les Deux Alpes.
Great reports and
pictures have been coming in from Austria for the past couple of weeks and a huge 'bounty of snow' is aparently sitting taunting skiers above the resorts of St Anton and Lech which are not yet open, however skiers at
Schladming were able to take full advantage.
Switzerland is also reporting a great start to the season, with good conditions at
Laax amongst others. Unfortunately on a more tempered note
warm winds are forecast for next week.
However it's not all doom and gloom in North America, with conditions in
Fernie beginning to shape up nicely and
Whistler expecting another 50cm of snow around Wednesday to add to the metre they already have, just in time for their opening this week.
Excitingly, in a PM,
Mike Pow tells the weatherHead of a fun day spent skiing in reasonable conditions at Niseko in northern Japan, with more snow on it's way.
Meanwhile the webcams are looking promising for many resorts including
Vitosha,
Ischgl, and
many others! Let's hope that all this pre season snow doesn't suffer the same fate as it did at Alta...
As usual there is
educated speculation as to what next week may hold, and excitingly some weather experts
are predicting a colder than usual winter in the nothern hemisphere. We shall see...
Any more information, corrections or updates that you may have, please
PM the weatherHead.
With thanks as ever to
http://pistehors.com ,
http://www.snow-forecast.com , and
easiski