Too much snow in Wallis: inaccessible ski resorts

Too much snow in Wallis: inaccessible ski resorts

It’s snowing intense in the Swiss canton of Valais since Sunday night. The combination of a lot of snow, a shifting snow line and strong winds creates a tense situation. The avalanche danger has increased to HIGH (4 on a scale of 5), ski resorts don’t have all their lifts running and roads are closed due to the avalanche danger. A number of ski areas can’t be reach by road anymore. The weather will improve on Wednesday, but there’s even more snow forecasted for Thursday.

Locally up to 150 centimeters of freshies

It’s snowing intense above 2000 meters since Sunday and with the dropping snow line that snowfall becomes a problem in the valleys. It causes inconvenience on the roads, but it will not come to closures. This is the case for the mountain passes where the avalanche danger is HIGH.

Belalp, Wallis
Belalp, Wallis

Avalanches on the marked slopes and in the off-piste

Two Italian skiers were killed by an avalanche when they were touring at the Simplon Pass on Saturday. A skier was caught by an avalanche on the slopes of Verbier on Sunday and a man was caught in an avalanche in St. Luc that same day. They both survived the avalanches and were ‘only’ injured.

Closed roads and mountain passes

The pass (Col des Montets) between Switzerland and Chamonix is closed because of the high avalanche danger. Also several access roads to ski resorts in Valais were shut down. This includes the roads to resorts like Crans-Montana, Zermatt and Arolla.

The Col de Forclaz and the Simplon Pass are only accessible with winter equipment and the road east of Brig is completely covered with snow. It is expected that more roads will be closed due to the snowfall the next couple of hours. Check out the latest news here.

The sun will come out tomorrow, but more snow is expected on Thursday. The situation in the west of Wallis will remain critical for a couple of days.

meteomorris
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