Fresh Snow at Altitude in the Alps
16th July 2025
Last modified on August 5th, 2025
There have been colder temperatures and fresh snow at altitude in the Alps as August gets underway.
UPDATED
There has been some recent fresh snow and cold temperatures in the Alps.
It has improved conditions on the glaciers ski areas that are open.
Overnight temperatures fell to -12c on the glaciers with the freezing level at 2,500m – 3,000m during the day.
“After a very hot start to the Alpine summer, which saw rapidly deteriorating snow conditions on the glaciers, the weather in the Alps turned cooler in the second week of July, allowing for temperatures more like the long-term average, making July 2025 an outlier compared with recent years,” said the alpine weather expert, Fraser Wilkin, from weathertoski.co.uk.
“Thanks to generally above average precipitation and some fresh snowfalls at high altitudes, summer snow conditions have improved and, for now, are not as bad as had been feared a few weeks ago.
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that the improvement to snow conditions on the Alpine glaciers is only temporary and that August is likely to be hot, and potentially very hot, again.
“Summer skiing will continue in the ski areas currently open, but snow conditions will deteriorate again as temperatures rise, with the glaciers likely to look increasingly threadbare again as the month progresses.”
Areas currently open in the Alps:
Italy: Passo Stelvio & Cervinia (shared with Zermatt)
Switzerland: Zermatt (shared with Cervinia) & Saas-Fee.
The recent weather has caused some temporary closures, so do check with the resorts for the latest updates.
PlanetSKI reader, Simon Lambert, says Hintertux is currently shut and closed earlier in the week.
The Austrian glacier area is usually open across most of the summer.
Tignes in France closed on Sunday 20th July, and there is now no French area open for skiing until late November.
Here are some social media posts on the latest snow:
It follows a warm period in the Alps earlier in the summer.
Saas-Fee opened for its summer season on 19th July.
Conditions were not ideal with rain falling at the top of the resort where the temperature at 3,500m was +3.5c.
Saas-Fee web camera image.
At 2,870m it was +12.5c.
Saas-Fee web camera image.
It has been a warm summer in the Alps and the freezing level rose to well over 4,000m at the end of June/beginning of July as Europe was hit by a heatwave.
It was the first time that June had seen the entire Alpine range above 0C (32F).
The weather station at Colle Major (4,750m) on Mt Blanc recorded a maximum of +3.7°C on Saturday June 28th.
The temperatures across the Alps are having a significant impact on the summer glacier skiing conditions but no resort has had to shut although there have been restrictions.
See here for some PlanetSKI reports on summer skiing and what else is on offer:
- PlanetSKI goes summer glacier skiing
- Glacier skiing: go while you still can
- Summer skiing in Les2Alpes: A sports lover’s dream
- Top resorts in the Alps for summer skiing
Scandinavia has seen warm summer temperatures in the last week of July and Norway’s Galdhøpiggen ski area is the only ski area still open for summer skiing.
It claims a 10cm at the base of the ski area, and 80cm at the top.
In the southern hemisphere resorts are open for their winter ski season as we reported earlier:
If you want to keep up to date with summer skiing across the globe then do check back.
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