Aspen and Whistler are the latest additions to an ever growing list of resorts in Western North America that have announced they'll be opening earlier than planned due to all the snowfall already recorded across the region, and continuing with further big accumulations expected.
It's a less rosy picture in Europe however with a few glacier resorts that had tentatively aimed to open this weekend – Crans Montana and Verbier - saying they won't be doing so until the snow arrives – now, hopefully, forecast for next week. World Cup races scheduled for Levi in Finland this weekend have also been postponed (Now re-scheduled to Aspen in a fortnight's time).
It's clearly too early to worry about a repeat of last winter's warm and dry run up to New Year in the alps and one good sign of resort confidence was Val Thorens yesterday issuing a statement saying they will open for snow sports in one week's time, as scheduled, despite the fact that a quick glance at webcams shows currently snowless slopes.
In fact autumn skiing conditions across the 15 or so glacier areas currently open in Europe has been generally superb with several good fresh snowfalls in September, October and clear sunny days between. The problem is that November has been dry so far and double-digits warm at lower levels, but that is set to change in the next week, hopefully dramatically.
In North America Breckenridge, Copper and Keystone are among half a dozen areas open in Colorado and Heavenly, Mammoth, Northstar, Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows in California where they're particularly excited about all the new snow after four straight 'drought' winters. The hope is that the 'Godzilla El Nino' forecast (and illustrated above by Squaw Valley) is already becoming a reality.
North of the border all three Banff resorts are open as of today along with Marmot Basin and early opening Big White.