Snow Forecast – Still looking good for Thursday…

The “Big Storm” we’ve been tracking for the last few days is still on course to deliver significant snow falls from Thursday.

The storm already massive on the GFS models a week ago – automated systems reporting ridiculous amounts of snow at first. Now downgraded somewhat but still a large amount of snow expected.

There will be high winds and disruption to skiing infrastructure and transport as this weather comes through. The huge low pressure system stretching across from Greenland to Norway will pull cold air directly from the Arctic and push Atlantic systems across France in to the Alps. The UK should see quite a bit of snow too and potentially snow will continue on and off throughout the weekend.

Latest GFS below:

Further snow showers Monday and Tuesday are possible but nothing significant as the Northern Alps seem to be “stealing” this snow, however it remains very cold. Sunday night temperatures falling to minus 8 degrees centigrade at resort level, probably as cold as it has been all season so far. While great skiing is still available first thing on groomed pistes higher up, some runs are starting to become very hard packed and scraped especially later in the day – the cold temperatures preserving the current snow pretty well really and the small top ups helping – hopefully all will be transformed by next weekend.

Actual runs and lifts open / closed hasn’t really changed much this last week – Pisteurs concentrating on what is open so far and all eyes on the end of this week (although with high winds it will take a while to open up parts of the mountain with avalanche safety concerns being dealt with first). That wind will be very cold too – wrap up well everyone…

Radar forecast showing the snow coming in on Wednesday night