Snow Conditions

The regional Avalanche Bulletins also contain information about snow condtions and the weather outlook.

Sunday, 31 December, 2006

Snow Report New Year 2007

The weather outlook for the next few days is for 50-70cm of snow at 2000m in the Northern French Alps, very little of this snow will make it to the Southern Alps or Pyrenees. The snow line will fall from 2000m on Monday to 1600m on Tuesday morning then 700-1000m on Wednesday. The fresh snow will be accompanied by very strong to violent winds from the south-west to west. This will move a lot of snow onto north-east to north slopes to add to existing slabs on west slopes formed before Christmas by the Lombard (east) wind.

The existing base is composed of a thick layer of depth hoar. Soft slabs will be found mid-slopes, the violent winds leading to cross-loading of slopes. Avalanche risk will rise over the coming days with skier triggered slabs of considerable size likely from the Haute-Savoie through to the north of the Hautes-Alps.

Posted by davidof at 10:05 PM
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Monday, 25 December, 2006

Snow Report for Christmas Week 2006

There has been little fresh snow since the 8-9 December except in the Southern Alps close to the border with Italy. Many resorts opened on the 23rd for the Christmas week but on artificial snow below 2000m. The week was marked by strong winds from the east on the border with Italy and these formed some new slabs on lee slopes particuarly in the Haute-Maurienne and Hautes-Alpes. A skier was trapped by an avalanche in the Champsaur area on Christmas Eve and we noted some slabs in our video bulletin.

Posted by davidof at 10:18 AM
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Sunday, 17 December, 2006

Snow Report - France 16 Dec 2006

Last week was marked by calm, fine weather with some strong winds, gusting to 80km/h, at atlitude on Wednesday. These were from the south-east and strongest in the Ecrins and Southern Alps. The zero isotherm was above 3500 meters on Wednesday and Thursday. The resort of les Saises in the Haute-Savoie saw daytime highs of +10C.

Posted by davidof at 11:02 AM
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Friday, 08 December, 2006

Improving snow conditions early December

Wednesday’s weather system brought 20cm of new snow to the Northern Alps, 10cm further south. However the conditions are generally better further south (Hautes-Alpes, Oisans) due to a better established base.

Posted by davidof at 07:34 AM
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Tuesday, 05 December, 2006

Poor start to Winter 2006

Meteo France has issued the following statement on the snow cover as at the end of November 2006.

Snow cover is currently very poor in both the French Alps and Pyrénées. In the Alps there is just a few cm of snow from 2000 meters altitude. At 2400 meters in the Northern Alps snow cover varies between 10 to 25 cm and 0 to 15cm in the Southern Alps. At 3000 meters there is rarely more than 15 to 30cm of snow. Snow cover in the Pyrénées is better. Starting from 1800m by 2400 meters there is 25 to 30cm of snow in the west and center of the massif, 0 to 20cm in the east.

Posted by davidof at 10:20 AM
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Tuesday, 28 November, 2006

Warmest autumn on record

Both l’Alpe d’Huez and les Deux Alpes will open their ski areas this weekend although conditions are described as “more like summer skiing” with winter already a month late. Records were broken yesterday, although they only broke the records set the day before. Apart from a brief period at the start of November autumn has been much hotter and drier than average, the hottest on record in France.

alpe d'huez
l’Alpe d’Huez

Posted by davidof at 11:18 PM
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Saturday, 25 November, 2006

Snow and weather reports for off piste skiers

HATadventures has launched a snow and weather report service for the Tarentaise Valley to help skiers who are thinking about going off piste. It covers Val d’Isere, Sainte Foy, Les Arcs and La Plagne resort areas and goes much further than the snow depth and temperature shown by standard computer generated reports.

Posted by chrisradford at 03:05 PM
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Wednesday, 01 November, 2006

Cold, dry start to November

A sea change in the weather with temperatures dropping from a daily max that flirted with 30°C before the weekend to just 17°C today. The weather system that passed over the alps on Tuesday evening brought under a mm of rain. Not enough to get excited about although the summits further north in the Haute-Savoie may look a bit whiter. It seems like winter may finally have started, the zero isotherm will be around 1500 meters overnight and some high altitude resorts may be looking to get their snow canons working soon. There is no snow below 3000m except in some very cold and shaded areas where the first traces can be seen from 2700m. Higher up glaciers are very open after a long, hot and relatively dry autumn.

Posted by davidof at 11:02 PM
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Wednesday, 18 October, 2006

Pyrenean Snow

With mid-October passed the only mountains where any skiing is being done, outside of the glacier at Tignes or on the high slopes of Mont Blanc is in the Pyrenees. The mountains have benefited from two winter storms this month and although the skiing is restricted to the area’s tiny glaciers it did look rather tempting.

ossoue october
Oussoue in October

Glacier d’Ossoue

Posted by davidof at 07:47 PM
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Wednesday, 11 October, 2006

A long, hot autumn

It has been a dry and warm autumn with just a peppering of snow above 2800m. The glaciers of the Grandes Rousse (l’Alpe d’Huez) are bare below 3000 meters and crevasses are visible on the glacier d’Argentiere and Rocher Blanc in the Belledonne range (two of a handful of surviving large glaciers in this range).

mont blanc october 2006
Le Mont Blanc