35-70 cm of freshies! The first powder turns?

Even though it’s still snowing in the main alpine ridge in Austria at the moment, it can’t hurt to look back. Especially if want to go out tomorrow, which could be quite good. They’re working hard in the glacier resorts to get everything ready for the weekend, but if you can be there on Friday you’ll probably enjoy great snow without the crowds.

Remember that this is the first dump of the season. The warm summer had its effect on the glaciers and crevasses came out pretty much everywhere. If there was anything left that you could call a glacier… Anyway, you should stay on the slopes this dump. It’s still September. Let nature do its job the next couple of weeks and the moment that we can ride out of bounds will come naturally.

In this blog:

• Looking back: 35-70 cm of freshies

• Short term

• Where to go?

• Snow from the East?

35-70 cm of **freshies

​**In the live blog from yesterday there were already 35-54 centimeters of freshies reported for the main Alpine ridge between Italy and Austria. Especially the Hohe Tauern got a lot of snow and the Hohe Sonnblick got over 70 centimeters of snow. It’s still snowing there at the moment, so there’s more coming up. An overview of the snow that fell over the past 36 hours, let’s have a look at the maps.

Sneeuwval afgelopen 6 dagen

The top 10 of resorts with the most snowfall can mainly be found in the main alpine ridge, between Italy and Austria. But we’re missing a couple of resorts and why are Andermatt, Flims and Laax part of the top 10 below?

Top 10 snowfall last 6 days

Missing ski **resorts

​**The resorts in Italy are missing, but it snowed over there as well yesterday. Fortunately they can be found lower on the list. The amounts of snow that came down in those areas are correct. But where can you find Val Senales and the Passo Stelvio? Well, that’s quite simple. We don’t consider Val Senales a freeride area (please, convince us if you think it is) and the ski resort of Passo Stelvio is not included because it’s closed during winter.

Large quantities of snow on the Stelvio yesterday afternoon

Too much snow for Andermatt?

Another interesting ski resort that made the list is Andermatt. They should have had 46 centimeters of snow in the last six days. But it’s impossible that that total amount of snow came down yesterday. I had a look at the resort page of Andermatt and that showed us that most of the snow came down before the weekend at high altitude.

Snowfall in Andermatt last week

Our maps are working just fine, but the long period of six days isn’t working that well for real fine tuners. It always a good idea to have a look at measuring stations. For those who can’t be bothered, don’t worry, the result of the measuring stations are included in my analysis and recommendations. For the short term: there is snow and the weather will be a bit better the next couple of days.

Short term

It’s still snowing lightly in the main alpine ridge at the time of writing and with a wind coming in from the southeast the last precipitation will hit the high alpine. That wind from the southeast will move the snow around quite a bit. The sun will come out the next couple of days, although there will still be some clouds as well. But they’ll probably disappear the next couple of days as well (they will stick around in the valleys though). The sun will start shining on the glaciers and it will be a great weekend for the first turns of the season on the slopes.

Where to go?

The lifts are running in the areas below on Friday morning and they will run during the weekend as well. I would pick Hintertux of Stubai (because of the wind coming in from the southeast). Check for more detailled information, tips and tricks and perhaps some accommodation the resort pages.

• Hintertuxer glacier

• Stubaier glacier

• Val Senales

• Passo dello Stelvio

• Mölltaler gletsjer

• Pitztaler glacier (opening this Saturday)

Hintertux yesterday afternoon (© Hintertux)

Long term: snow from the east?

An extensive high pressure area settles over Europe and with a current coming from the northeast to east cold air and snow is coming in. The Piedmont, the French resorts on the border with Italy, parts of the Dolomites and the east of Austria have the best cards. A comprehensive analysis will follow later.

Stay stoked

Morris