Sunny, Cold and Magnificent | Welove2ski
Snow Report

Sunny, Cold and Magnificent

It will stay cold all week: with more snow expected at the weekend.
Sunny, Cold and Magnificent | Welove2ski
Ischgl in the Austrian Tirol this afternoon. Photo: ischgl.com

After more than two weeks of almost continuous snowfall – and several fatal avalanche accidents – the clouds in the eastern Alps finally lifted last Wednesday. What’s more the snowpack settled very quickly, and now in many areas the avalanche risk is 2/5. That’s not “safe” by any means. But it’s a lot more manageable than the 5/5 we saw in eastern Switzerland and Austria on January 14.

The result has been a fabulous six days of skiing: summed up by the photograph, below, taken by one of the guides at Piste to Powder in St Anton on Saturday.

Sunny, Cold and Magnificent | Welove2ski
Photo: Piste to Powder/Facebook

Meanwhile, this shot was taken in the Skiwelt last Thursday.

Sunny, Cold and Magnificent | Welove2ski
Photo: Skiwelt/Facebook

What’s more the snow is going to stay in tip-top condition, thanks to a prolonged cold spell. Top temperature in Lech today, for example was -3C. Tomorrow, it won’t top -5C, and on Wednesday it’ll be -6C. The next significant snowfall is likely to be on Saturday, and it’ll come from the north-west, so it’s going to settle in the valleys again.
 

There’s been good skiing this week in the north-western Alps too, thanks to heavy snow over the weekend of January 12 and 13.

Here’s how it looked on piste in Val d’Isere first thing this morning.

Sunny, Cold and Magnificent | Welove2ski
Photo: yseski.co.uk

Here too, the avalanche risk is mostly 2/5, and it’s going to stay cold – with the daytime freezing point no higher than 300m. More snow is expected too – though it’s likely to be patchy and fairly light, until Sunday at least. (Heavier and more consistent snowfall is expected in the Pyrenees.)
 

Meanwhile, Italy continues to have a very different January. Yes, it’s cold: but also much drier. It’s a good thing the Italian resorts have such good snow-making systems: as you can see from this shot above Canazei in the Italian Dolomites. On piste, the snow is deep and soft. Off-piste, the cover is much thinner.

Sunny, Cold and Magnificent | Welove2ski
Photo: Fassa.com

 

 

About the author

Sean Newsom

As well as founding Welove2ski in June 2007, Sean has written about skiing and snowboarding in the British press for 28 years. For the last 20 of them, he’s also been the ski travel editor at The Sunday Times.

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