It won’t stop snowing!

Another chilly, late-season storm blew into the northern Alps on Tuesday, and it won’t let up till Friday night.

So far, it hasn’t dropped quite as much snow as expected, although parts of the Engadin valley in Switzerland, Cervinia in Italy, and Hintertux and the East Tirol in Austria reported 50cm this morning. Since then, it’s been snowing hard, and the storm will continue overnight. We could see accumulations of up to a metre in the eastern half of the Alps by the time it’s done.

Here’s tomorrow’s snow forecast.

There’s more to follow, too. After a break at the weekend, snow will return on Monday, May 1.

It’s turning into one of the snowiest spells of the season – and frankly it’s rather annoying, given that most resorts have already shut. What’s more, a significant number of high-altitude areas will close on April 30 or May 1, including Val d’Isere, Val Thorens, Cervinia and Obergurgl. Tignes will stay open to May 6, but pretty soon we’ll have boiled down to a handful of glacier ski areas, such as the Stubai, Hintertux, the Kitzsteinhorn and Zermatt.
 

 
Still, the sun’s due to come out on Saturday, and with all the fresh snow on the ground, along with cool-ish temperatures, it’s going to be a magnificent day at altitude.

Let’s just hope that next winter, Mother Nature can deliver a few more storms like this in early December and mid-March, when we really need them!

Here’s how it was looking in Val d’Isere earlier today, with 20-30cm of fresh snow on the higher slopes.

And this was the very snowy scene, half-way up Corvatsch in St Moritz, Switzerland.

Finally, this is stage for Ischgl’s closing-weekend concert – all set for Italian superstar Zuccchero. Thank goodness the skies will have lifted by the time he performs.