J2Ski Snow Report - February 23rd 2023
J2Ski Snow Report - February 23rd 2023
Published : 23-Feb-2023 07:38
J2Ski Snow Report February 23rd 2023
Eaglecrest, Alaska, has had 22 straight days of snow! Nice...
Colder in the Alps? Yet more snow in the US
The Snow Headlines - 23rd February
- Riksgransen opening for the 2023 season on Friday.
- Light snowfall and temperatures dropping in the Alps, Dolomites & Pyrenees.
- Colorado ski area extends the season by a week.
- Alaskan ski area posts 2.4m (96") of new snow over 22 straight days of snowfall.
- Half-a-metre snowfalls in Norway.
- Summer snow in New Zealand!
- A possible 'retour d'est' may bring decent snow to a few lucky areas next week!
European Alps (a small part of them anyway) back in the game?
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World Overview
It's not a spectacular return to winter but with mother nature's usual capriciousness, after a fairly spring-like final few weeks of meteorological winter, it looks like the start of spring in Western Europe will feel more like winter! Clouds have started moving in, in the past 24 hours, temperatures are dropping back down to what they should be, and snowfall, albeit light, has begun refreshing slopes – some of which haven't seen any for a month.
Elsewhere in Europe, it has been a snowy week in Scandinavia and the Tatra Mountains of northern mainland Europe also did well when the snow clouds from the north didn't really deliver to Austria, a little further south, as hoped.
For serious snowfall though it's Japan or North America. The latter has been posting big snow accumulations in the west over the last week (some areas have had more than a metre/40"). But there's much more coming over the next few days with the possibility of a blizzard in Los Angeles exciting mainstream media. Skiers are more fired up about the several feet of snow expected on the mountains above by Monday.
Europe
Austria
Forecast snowfall for Austria last week unfortunately didn't come to much, and in the end, there was a bit of cloud and a few light dustings hardly worth measuring. For the week ahead the model is again for some snowfall, but how much is open to debate and perhaps a bit of guesswork, it looks like anything between 10 and 50cm.
Perhaps more importantly temperatures are dropping so the thaw of the last few weeks should slow. It hasn't really had a severe impact on the terrain that's open – which continues to be almost everything at the big resorts, but bases have been getting very thin down low.
France
French ski areas, particularly in the northern alps, have now gone up to five weeks with no measurable snowfall. The first three weeks of that time were very cold and sunny, the past fortnight warm and sunny and base depths have been gradually dropping.
Despite that, remnants of pre-Christmas and mid-January snowfalls, plus snowmaking in the cold spell, has allowed most areas to have most of their runs open.
The good news now is a return of colder weather with clouds arriving from the southwest and light snowfall expected over the next few days.
Tignes and Val d'Isere are still posting Europe's deepest snow bases up on their glaciers at 2.7 metres.
Italy
A similar story in Italy, although most ski areas here did see at least a light snowfall in mid-February.
The country's slopes are now seeing fronts moving in from the southwest on one side and northeast on the other, bringing cloud, lower temperatures and hopefully a few centimetres more snowfall.
In the meantime most of the big ski areas have nearly all of their terrain open, with the very biggest, Dolomiti Superski, posting more than 95% of its 1200km runs as currently skiable.
Switzerland
Switzerland is also seeing temperatures starting to drop and some light snowfall after another predominantly warm and sunny week.
Here too bases have been thinning through February but despite Swiss media reports of low lying little known small ski centres being forced to close in the warm temperatures, the bigger destination centres mostly remain fully open, or thereabouts.
The 4 Valleys (including Verbier) reports 370km – about 90% of its runs open, for example, with most other Swiss areas posting similar numbers.
Here too, colder, cloudier and hopefully snowier conditions are arriving from both the southwest and the northeast.
Scandinavia
Scandinavia continues to be the place to be in Europe if you like your snow fresh and your powder deep.
The Myrkdalen centre in western Norway, close to Voss, posted 50cm of fresh snowfall to start the week and has the second-deepest base in Europe behind Tignes/Val d'Isere, and its 2.4m snowpack has much fresher snow cover.
Snow was reported right across Scandinavia, including up in Lapland. Riksgransen opens for the season on Saturday.
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees have had a warm and sunny week once again, like the Alps, and resorts here too have thin bases for February, but also still have most of their runs open.
The past 24 hours or so have seen an improvement though with a temperature drop and snow falling from Wednesday evening, the first fresh for a fortnight in most areas.
Scotland
Alas, the amount of terrain open in Scotland has continued to diminish and at the time of writing there's nothing open at Glencoe or Nevis range in the West and just a handful of beginner runs at Glenshee and The Lecht with Cairngorm the only centre with a small amount of natural snow terrain available to advanced skiers up high.
It does keep snowing and conditions are a little cooler now than they've been, the problem being daytime highs of +10C making it a losing battle at the moment.
Eastern Europe
Fairly good conditions in Eastern Europe, particularly in the north, but down in Bulgaria, where it has been a little warm and sunny after the cold and snowy start to the month, most slopes remain open including the long run back from the slopes to the village at Bansko.
Ski slopes in the Czech and Slovak Republics and Poland have actually had some of the snowiest weather in Europe over the past week with plenty of fresh snowfall. Jasna is 100% open and one of the few resorts posting a 2-metre base depth up top, but operations were limited earlier this week by strong winds.
North America
Canada
If you like plenty of powder it's been a great week across Canada with some big falls in Alberta and BC and 20-30cm or so on the slopes of Quebec in the East too.
Big winners include resorts like Big White, Silver Star and many others reporting 50 – 100cm of new snowfall in the last few days. The avalanche danger is very high though.
Temperatures have been in the freezing to -20C range and are set to get colder still in the East this weekend and there's more snow forecast across the country.
USA
The US weather forecast is making mainstream news headlines again with heavy snow expected in places that don't usually get it and there's the likelihood of a 100F difference between the hottest and coldest parts of the country this weekend.
For ski resorts, it's almost entirely good news with big dumps expected, on top of what have been big dumps over the last week, particularly in the Rockies and Pacific Northwest. As a result, Steamboat says its season will last at least one extra week to the 16th of April and Alaska's Eaglecrest Ski Area has now reported 22 straight days of recorded snowfall and 96 inches (2.4 metres) of new snow.
The East Coast hasn't had such a great week, with warm temperatures here, but the forecast is promising, at least in the north, with a foot of snowfall forecast.
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