Till 70 centimeters of freshies and PA #7

Let’s start the day with a nice comparison. The French resort of Isola 2000 yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening and this morning. From autumn to winter in less than 24 hours.

Current snowfall

The next reports came in this morning:

• Isola 2000 and Valberg +45-50 centimeters

• Limone Piemonte +42 centimeters

• the Monte Rosa area + 25-40 centimeters

• the Hautes Alpes +20-40 centimeters

• the Italian Piemonte +15-40 centimeters

• the southeast of Wallis (Simplon and Zermatt) +25 centimeters

• the first Alps in the Haute Savoie

• the Savoie and Isère (Flaine, La Clusaz) +10-15 centimeters

• the resorts in the Swiss kanton of Ticino +15 centimeters.

This basically is the list of resorts that got a lot of snow. As expected, the inneralpine regions in the Savoie and Wallis didn’t get much snow, just a couple of centimeters. It was dry in for Switzerland, Austria and the northeast of Italy.

Valberg is another resort far south where they had a lot of freshies.

It’s still snowing right now in the Alps. The sun will come out around noon and I expect in the Piemonte and the French southern Alps another 10-20 centimeters. The total amount of freshies will be 40-70 centimeters for the region. Exactly what I expected…

Short term

The sun will come out in the afternoon and the weekend will be sunny with mild temperatures. The sun will challenge you to go deeper into the backcountry. Especially in the resorts where they had a lot of freshies you’ll have to watch out. The snowcover is thin, so there will be sharks just below the surface. And more important: the snowcover is pretty unstable, because this new snow doesn’t bond well with the existing layers in the snowcover. Please be safe out there!

Long term

• Tuesday will mark the start of PowderAlert #7. The snow will come from the southwest again (just like now) and a Föhn wind will hit the northern Alps.

• The precipitation will intensify in the southwest and the southern Alps on Wednesday. The Föhn will hit the northern Alps and the temperatures will rise over there.

• It will probably snow in the complete Alps on Thursday, but the temperatures will go up again on Friday. Not really a dream scenario, but it could be worse.

Summary

Lots of snow in the southwest of the Alps. The sun will come out and the temperatures will rise. It will snow again from the southwest on Tuesday, a Föhn wind will kick in and it will snow in the completely Alps (deep into the valleys) on Boxing Day, even though this probably will be temporarily, because the long term indications are showing temperatures that are (too) high.

Don’t forget to post reports on the updated PowderQuest app and ride safe out there!

Stay stoked

Morris