Heavy Snow & Rain Hits the Alps Affecting Xmas Skiing
24th December 2022
Last modified on December 27th, 2022
There has been heavy snow at altitude in the Alps with up to a metre falling in places. Lower down rain has harmed the snowpack. UPDATED
Tuesday 27th December
The rain and snow has eased, with some upper slopes looking good.
And the lower ones?
Generally nNt so, as the heavy rain has Xmas has washed away much of the snow in some of the popular resorts in France.
Temperatures remain warm with the freezing level at around 1,700m in the north-western Alps.
“The worst of the rain fell across the northern French Alps where most of the natural (unmanaged) snow has disappeared below about 1400m or so,” said Fraser Wilkin form weathertoski.co.uk over the Xmas period.
“This includes the likes of the 3 Valleys, the Grand Massif, the Chamonix valley and the Portes du Soleil.
“The western and northern Swiss Alps (e.g. Villars, Gstaad, Jungfrau region) have also been badly affected. Austria also saw rain, especially in the west (e.g. Arlberg region) but the loss of snow has not been quite as acute here as it was further west.”
The best places for snow are currently the high altitude resorts such as Val Thorens and Tignes in France and Zermatt in Switzerland.
Or in the Dolomites in Italy that escaped the rain.
Here at PlanetSKI we will be updating this article later so do check back.
Saturday 24th December
Once the lifts open and the slopes have been made safe there should be some excellent conditions on the slopes at altitude.
Lower down (below 2,500m) there has been heavy rain that has caused a sharp deterioration in conditions.
Not the ideal present for those people out for Christmas.
One PlanetSKI reader, John Barnfield, has commented on the PlanetSKI Facebook page.
“Just back from a week at La Plagne, and just watched the rain on Friday literally wash the snow away.
“The early week skiing on piste was amazingly good, off-piste deteriorated rapidly as the temps came up.
“It will need lower temps and another decent snowfall fall to repair the damage done at 2300-2500m and below sadly. Fingers crossed as back out in 3 weeks,” added John.
Another, Marcus Cooper, has added his thoughts
The snow and accompanying warm temperatures have led to a high risk of avalanche in places.
The risk was at Level 4 on a scale of 5 in places.
The Level 4 warning (the second highest danger level) was issued for parts of the Valais canton in Switzerland and a Level 3 for many parts of the central Bernese Oberland.
By Christmas Day it dropped down to Level 3, meaning “considerable avalanche danger will be encountered over a wide area,” according to the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research.
Image c/o the Swiss Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
Level 4 means the avalanche risk is critical where natural and very large avalanches are likely.
They can be triggered on many steep slopes.
Switzerland has changed its warning system for this winter with some sub-dividing of the categories.
PlanetSKI’s editor James Cove was in France in the run up to Xmas.
He reported on some very good pre-Xmas conditions, but that has now changed.
He left the Alps as planned just as the weather changed.
See here for some of our recent snow reports from James and other contributors:
Meanwhile the snow has finally arrived in Scandinavia with resorts in Norway welcoming the snow.
Here at PlanetSKI we will be reporting on the changing conditions.
Do check back…
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