A Sprinkling of Snow in Austria – And an Easing of Entry Restrictions

There’s been a sprinkling of snow across Austria and parts of Switzerland today. It hasn’t been much so far (5-10cm in most places), but the white stuff will be back in earnest on Saturday. The current forecast is for up to 35cm in parts of the Tirol and Salzburgerland, and there’ll be strong winds at times as well.

Here’s the 24hr snow forecast until midnight tonight, courtesy of Meteoblue.

And here’s the 24-hour forecast till midnight on Saturday.

The top-up will of course be very welcome after more than a week of dry and sunny weather. What’s more, it coincides with the announcement today that entry restrictions on travellers from the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway will ease on Monday January 24.

Essentially, the new regulations mean that Brits with three doses of the vaccine will be able to enter Austria without having to show a negative PCR test – provided they had their booster at least 120 days after the second jab. But check here for full details of the new entry requirements. And check here for details Covid restrictions within Austria. As ever, bear in mind they can change quickly.

So it’s a good news day for the Austrian ski industry…unless you happen to be in Kitzbühel, working on the famous Hahnenkamm race weekend, which begins tomorrow.

Here, fresh snow is the last thing they need, and the forecast has already affected the race programme. At the time of writing, the schedule has been rearranged so that the Downhill starts tomorrow, with more racing on Sunday. The slalom is scheduled for Saturday.

What’s more, the race team is sure to be up on the Streif course before dawn, clearing any snow that fell overnight. If you haven’t already seen it, check out our feature on how the Hahnenkamm course is prepared. There’s a mind-boggling amount of work going on behind the scenes.

Let’s hope they manage to wring a race weekend out of the weather and the Covid restrictions – and that everyone gets to the finish line unharmed. After all, it’s only a fortnight unitl the start of the Winter Olympics.