Snow in French Alps (SIFA related)

[bad_roo]

At last. Northern French Alps look to be getting a good blasting today with decent snowfalls at higher elevations in the southern mountains too. The Val d'Isere webcam's looking particularly good.

http://www.valdinet.com/webcams/jpg/val1.jpg

http://www.trinum.com/ibox/combloux/Images/dome2.jpg

http://www.la-grave.com/webcam/l_2400.jpg

[verbier61]

verb is opening..... well, it's just the lac des vaux, but much better than nothing. BTW, it has been snowing all the day, so let's see what's available down to the attelas

[Hicks]

When all of Mt. Fort's rear side has got sufficient coverage gimme a call.

[Ripzalot]

verb is opening..... well, it's just the lac des vaux, but much better than nothing. BTW, it has been snowing all the day, so let's see what's available down to the attelas

you skiing? tomorrow is a possibility.

[verbier61]

15 cm powder on saturday night..... not enough (no way to go to ruinettes or to the attelas couloirs, creblet, etc...), but the first 1-2 hours of opening at the lac des vaux were nice..... tried my new jaks and they were much more S W E E T than anticipated.

[Lostinthetrees]

[QUOTE=bad_roo]At last. Northern French Alps look to be getting a good blasting today with decent snowfalls ... [QUOTE]

What hose* you sucking on for this info? Some ski resort weather report?

Better try some non-biased, non-resort marketing sources:

http://www.meteoswiss.ch/en/index.shtml

http://www.eyesonsky.com/meteos.php

Sadly lacking coverage in the Western CH Alpes for any off-piste action. Very dry early season start. Just got back from Zermatt this evening. I skied it, I know it.


* to be read with a sense of humor. Street french for a great line of information is a "tuyau". To give someone "un tuyau" is to put someone in the know.

litt

[bad_roo]

Snow right down to the village in Cham. That's not common for November.

[Lostinthetrees]

Snow right down to the village in Cham. That's not common for November.

Keep the faith, bro!
We have a long way to gooooooo!

[verbier61]

When all of Mt. Fort's rear side has got sufficient coverage gimme a call.

It's all crevasses so far. I'll prolly call ya in february....

[Hicks]

It's all crevasses so far. I'll prolly call ya in february....

What about the north faces down to Lac de Cleuson?

[subtle plague]

sorry folks, but dont get too euphoric.... the cover at 2000m is far below average in the swiss alps(should be the same in the french alps)
im constanly eying the snow heights.
here are some depressing facts:
I just copied the Wallis stations (SLF official ones not any ski resort related measurements)

Station HüM Schneehöhe Temperatur Wind
Arolla Les Fontanesses 2850 m 37 cm -1 Grad SW/17 km/h
Anniviers Tracuit 2590 m 10 cm 1 Grad SW/18 km/h
Saas Schwarzmies 2810 m 40 cm -1 Grad NW/23 km/h
Zermatt Triftchumme 2750 m 36 cm 1 Grad NW/50 km/h
Simplon Alpjer 2620 m 54 cm 0 Grad E/0 km/h
Oberwald Jostsee 2430 m 21 cm -3 Grad E/8 km/h
Goms Ernergalen 2450 m 19 cm -3 Grad SW/34 km/h
Mund Chiematte 2210 m 22 cm -5 Grad W/30 km/h
Gandegg 2620 m 80 cm -0 Grad NW/20 km/h
Trubelboden 2480 m 37 cm 1 Grad NW/26 km/h
Vallee de la Sionne Donin du Jour 2390 m 20 cm 1 Grad W/22 km/h
Nendaz Essertse 2325 m 5 cm 4 Grad SW/23 km/h
Boveire Pointe de Toules 2700 m 6 cm 1 Grad NW/6 km/h
Val d'Illiez Les Collines 2020 m 30 cm -1 Grad SW/24 km/h
Finhaut L'Ecreuleuse 2240 m 16 cm 2 Grad W/6 km/h
La Fouly Glacier des Plines 2990 m 43 cm

[verbier61]

What about the north faces down to Lac de Cleuson?

Last year the season started in verb in early november with the lac des vaux still liquid...... seemed to ski in norway looking at the sea....
this year the lac is frozen, but - as pointed by the plague - snow level is well below the season averages and no more snow at seen this week

[davidof]

You may be interested in the PisteHors snow report:

http://www.pistehors.com/comments/359_0_1_0_C/

in particular this graphic which compares ski tours logged for the Northern Alps on the skirando.ch database:

http://www.skirando.com/images/news/...ings-19nov.png

red is 2003, blue is 2004.

I havn't been up because there was only about 10cm of French around Grenoble and I've got the wee-mon to look after but someone who skied the Croix de Chamrouse yesterday said that you don't even want to use your rock skis but skis you pulled out of someone elses garbage.

Weather is warm and sunny at the mo. If things stay like this I won't be skiing much before mid-December :-(. Still things could be worse, this was l'alpe d'Huez two years ago on the 18th of December

http://mapage.noos.fr/pistehors/imag.../alpedhuez.jpg

The Pyrenees is looking grand though, this is the Tourmalet

http://img80.exs.cx/img80/5759/Dameuse2010-11-04.jpg

Ax has 60% of the domain open and Formiguers, Andorra and Les Angles are open. Many more resorts plan to open next weekend.

[bad_roo]

'The early bird gets the corduroy' as they say on the Heavenly website.

I remember that run up to Christmas at Alpe d'Huez. The hoteliers all turned into amateur meteorologists. A guy I know fell off the Le Jeux ribbon at about 60mph and fractured his pelvis. Ouch.

I've got to keep reminding myself that depsite seeing all the deep stuff in California and Utah it's still November. If the cover is still patchy in four week's time, then I'll start getting a bit concerned.

[subtle plague]

weather doesn't look bad anymore in the med/long term and i have finally found snow !
As i searched the web for infomation on my favourite resorts i found out that the Avalanche Guys from the Austrian part where the Krippenstein is finally woke up. 100cm at 2000m
and 70at 1400m
and they had 40cm at 900m !!
of course they are not open but you can ski excellent conditions on the Dachsteion Glacier...
sadly it is melting up to 1500/1600
but nevertheless it looked like this on the weekend.
There is snow in the alps and it looks like a bit coud be on the way.
http://www.scas.at/seewhat/nw1.jpg
http://www.scas.at/seewhat/nw2.jpg

[verbier61]

.... looks like something BIG might come this sunday from the south..... have you heard the same?

[subtle plague]

.... looks like something BIG might come this sunday from the south..... have you heard the same?

I heard hannibal and his elephants are stuck in Spain, so the probably won't reach the alps on time.


In case you're not trying to make fun of me: Well considering snowfall i dont see anything unusual coming in the next 5 days.

[verbier61]

the question was serious....
in november - december 2003 we had a lot of snow from the south, blasting southern alps (some spots on dolomites had already 1.5 meters of snow in early december). So far we have had nothing serious from south or north, but the first "alarm" I read this season (I mean I just read it this morning) was for a possible mediterranean-born blast arriving this sunday. Which is sort of for me since verb is clearly north of alps

[subtle plague]

sorry for my paranoia, but the interweb is a harsh environment
well concerning the Souhtern Dump: the is the slight chance of a warm wet weather pattern forming on sunday resulting in snofall on monday. But this is 120h+ so im not counting on anything and it would mean snow levels around 2000m

It would hit the western alps quite good, but i still hope this will change into a colder and more northwestern angle. But i would not consult any weather maps further out than 108-120 hours in advance. it is only depressing In the weather board im hanging out people dont get excited about anything further out than 72h. In the long term the models showed several insane constellations this winter.... but none came true.