Huge Snowfall Forecast for The Alps

Increasingly excited forecasts of significant snowfall in the Alps in the latter half of this week are filling social media as nervous resorts and tour operators see light at the end of a so far dry and warm November tunnel.

Reports initially quoted 20-30cm accumulations this morning but by this evening the most excited were
claiming that up to 1.5m (five feet) of snow is likely in some places by the end of the weekend.

The snow's arrival is a little too late for Val Thorens which has just announced it will be delaying its planned opening by a week, just a few days after it said it would definitely open even if there was no snow. The highest resort in France was due to open for this weekend, the second in the country.

Elsewhere in Europe snow has been falling in Scandinavia (Hemsedal pictured above) today. Snow is also expected later this week in the Pyrenees and on Scottish hills.

Across the Atlantic there are excellent conditions in Western North America where a succession of Pacific storms have brought large volumes of fresh snow with many resorts posting 20-30cm of new snow over night. All three Banff ski areas are open and they received 50cm over the weekend.

Very sensible not to open Val Thorens if there is going to be the first heavy snow of the season this weekend. I'd imagine that the Avalanche risk would be high??

They probably wouldn't be able to open with 1.5 metres of snow falling, and quite possibly were aware of arriving snow before they made this decision. It costs money to run lifts and especially to secure some skiable terrain from avalanches (and it will be very difficult if 1 m falls in 24 hours), and they wouldn't be able to make it worthwhile since most people won't be bothered to drive up in bad weather. Makes sense to wait a week.

You can depend on the bigger French resorts making their decisions on what is most profitable rather than on what the customers might want :shock: .

A few years ago, we holidayed in La Plagne for the New Year's week. It bucketed down on the Thursday night but the lift company were incredibly slow opening up the resort the next day :evil: . I reckon they calculated that the following week was one of their quietest weeks and so they weren't bothered to make a decent effort or pay overtime to get the slopes open quickly. As a result, we lost a full days skiing. I was not a happy camper :twisted:.

^^Which customers? Those who are still in UK and won't be heading out for another 2-3 weeks at least? No-one from around the area will drive in this weather. A hundred tickets or so that resort can potentially sell to some abstract customers is not worth the hassle, especially since the season hasn't yet started. Also, securing pistes is a lot of work and takes time. Late opening is often the norm after the snow especially when there are steep slopes around. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with resorts making their decisions on what is most profitable, it's not like their customers are not looking for better deals for themselves too:)

Before a ski resort can open after snowfall the skiable area has to be secured by the pisteurs in accordance with the Plan d'Intervention et de Déclenchement des Avalanches (PIDA). This is a legally binding document that details precisely what has to be done and who has to do it. This is the one for Courchevel http://www.mairie-courchevel.com/download/SECOURS/am-9.pdf It takes as long as it takes.
The work is pretty dangerous, every season there are a few fatal accidents, to say that they couldn't be bothered to make a decent effort is quite offensive. Would you like to do it?

The charges don't always go off, would you like to retrieve one and defuse it? All for €2000 a month.

If you look on the Val Thorens web cams you will see that there's hardly any snow, so they haven't been able to put the piste markers out yet. There is no way they could get all the necessary work done in order to open on Saturday as the snow isn't expected to arrive until Friday.

La Plagne is the most visited ski resort in the world, it's pretty busy all season. As with any other resort they open the runs as soon as it's safe to do so. At this time of year there is no profit to be made as most of the skiers are season pass holders, some places even offer free ski passes.

Val Thorens later put out a press release which pretty much confirms all the comments above - they say they need a minimum four days to prep the pistes. The storm seems to be most likely to hit Saturday/Sunday and if forecasts are correct is looking like a 'major weather event' so it would be a bit mad to encourage people to try to get there anyway. They had also previously put out a release a week ago saying they definitely intended to open so I think really wanted to, even without snow (and the resulting negative "Resort Opens With No Snow" headlines), but this pretty unique set of circumstances has forced them to change their minds. I remember a few years back they did delay opening a week due to lack of snow, but then it snowed a lot around the original opening date so they opened a few days after the original date and a few days before the new date and claimed they were "opening early because of all the snow" Marketing genius :) Be interesting to see if they do that again around next Tuesday/Wednesday...