It has been a really good Christmas and New Year for most ski areas in Europe. After plenty of snow in the run-up to the festive week the sun came out to give a glorious week for most, and the main complaint was really that with some areas running at capacity for skiers numbers, slopes got crowded and there were queues for lifts at times. However, after what’s traditionally one of the busiest weeks of the season, the coming fortnight is usually amongst the quietest so January visitors can take advantage of the same good conditions but with much quieter slopes. It’s a similar picture for much of the rest of the ski world, more fresh snow in Scandinavia, good cover in the Pyrenees and a much-improved picture in eastern Europe.
France
There has been almost wall-to-wall sunshine on French ski slopes over the past week and combine that with the fact that almost every run is open and every lift turning following the good early-season snowfalls in November and December and it adds up to one of the best Christmas/New Years here in years. Indeed official stats have shown business up 3 per cent even though there’s an ongoing national rail strike on. Val Thorens now has snow lying more than 4 metres deep so is looking good for the rest of its season into May already. The week ahead looks like more of the same for the next few days then an increasingly snowy picture next week.
Austria
Skiers and snowboarders have been reporting great conditions in Austria over the past week. It has been largely sunny and on the mountain temperatures have mostly stayed sub-zero although it’s been above freezing at times down in the valleys. Most of the country’s best-known ski areas are now fully open, or nearly so, with over 250km of trails now groomed and skiable in the Arlberg region above Lech and St Anton and over 200km in the Skiwelt above Brixen, Ellmau, Söll and Westendorf. There’s a change in the weather on the cards later this week with snowfall expected for most of the country’s slopes with 10-30cm forecast across the country.
Italy
It has been a week of largely glorious sunny weather on the slopes of Italy’s ski resorts and here the good snowfalls in November and December also mean that most of the country’s ski runs are open. Most of the country’s ski areas are fully open or nearly so, with base depths reaching 4 metres up on the glaciers. Cervinia’s ski area is linked to Zermatt over the border in Switzerland and here conditions are so good that not only is there 2.5 metres lying up top but – more crucially as we get to the end of the season in four months’ time – there’s already a metre of snow lying down at resort level too.
Switzerland
Swiss resorts have also had a fairly fantastic New Year week with pretty much every ski run in the country open and all lifts turning. The combination of great snow conditions and sunshine has actually caused some problems with Saas-Fee having to warn people over New Year that its 2,900 bay carpark was full and drivers would be turned away, they advised arriving by bus. Andermatt became the first resort in the country this season to post a 4 metre base depth. It looks like there should be some fresh snow on Swiss slopes, perhaps 10-30cm, over the weekend which should freshen cover up nicely.
Canada
The best conditions in Canada continue to be inland in British Columbia and Alberta where resorts like Banff, Jasper, Fernie and Big White are fully open and reporting great snow conditions. It’s a less happy picture on both Atlantic and Pacific coasts. In Quebec, to the East, warm weather followed by weather phenomena like freezing rain has left the major resorts like Tremblant and Mont Ste Anne with very thin cover so far and only parts of their terrain able to open. Over on the Pacific coast, it has been a similar picture but things are picking up faster here with more big snowstorms blowing in. Whistler Blackcomb now has about a third of its huge area open as a result.
USA
It’s looking good across almost all of the US now. There were some huge snowfalls in the Rockies last weekend bringing more than a metre of snow over the weekend and it has been snowing again there in the past few days. The Northwest, which had been suffering warm temperatures in the run-up to Christmas has turned colder and is getting dumped on and in New England, where they had problems at the start of the week with freezing rain requiring a massive de-icing effort of lift machinery, are also now seeing the correct types of precipitation and have been reporting 30cm+ snowfalls in the past 36 hours.
Eastern Europe
There has been a big improvement in conditions in Eastern Europe over the past seven days. Whilst it has been sunny in the Alps, it kept snowing in the Czech and Slovak Republic allowing resorts like Jasna to open more terrain whilst down in Bulgaria the cold weather allowed Borovets to go from having almost no terrain open at Christmas to the entire mountain open for New Year’s Eve. At Bansko, the onus has been on snowmaking down the ‘snow road’ run from the ski slope to the resort and here too snowmaking efforts meant this long run was open for New Year.
Andorra
According to their published data, pretty well every single lift is operating, and ever lift open in Andorra for the busy New Year week. It has in fact been a fairly quiet week for the weather with mostly clear, sunny skies after the snowy run-up to Christmas. Temperatures have been creeping up above freezing too, but things have been changing in the past few days with cooler temperatures and signs of fresh snow. Base depths remain around the metre mark on Andorran ski slopes with the deepest snow in the small Arcalis sector, famed for its freeriding. Grandvalira, the biggest area in the Pyrenees with 210km of slopes, all open, has 30-75cm of snow lying.
Scandinavia
Whilst the sun has been shining in the Alps it has kept snowing in Scandinavia – on and off. Not quite the big snowfalls that were seen around Christmas in Western Norway but more 10-20cm accumulations making conditions, which were already good across the region, still better. Base depths in Scandinavia don’t normally get to the levels seen in the Alps, but with smooth slopes that’s not an issue and usually 30cm is enough to open a run, 50cm looks good and most have passed that, some now hitting the metre mark and fully open. Western Norway continues to get the most snow with Bjorli posting 20cm more in the past few days.
Scotland
Another tricky week for Scottish ski centres with very warm temperatures in the region at the weekend (in fact the warmest temperatures on record for the end of December a little further north than the ski slopes, up in Caithness) as well as the usual issue with strong winds at times has left little natural snow cover on the slopes. All five centres have still been operating to some degree, however, thanks in good part to their all-weather snowmaking machine creating at least beginner slopes. A few centres, including Glenshee, have a little more with longer runs available still too and temperatures have been back below freezing, making a hoped-for improvement for the start of 2020.