Heavy Snowfall Reaches Valley Floors in the Alps
Heavy Snowfall Reaches Valley Floors in the Alps
Published : 04-Nov-2023 07:07
It's been snowing ever more heavily at altitude and the snowline has moved down to the valley floor for the first time in many parts of the Alps.
The biggest accumulation yet reported is 60cm (2 feet) in 36 hours on the Stubai glacier near Innsbruck, but many others have reported 30-50cm above 2,500m on ski slopes in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
More glacier areas including the Kitzsteinhorn near Kaprun, the first area in Salzburgerland to open for the 23-24 season and the Molltal in Carinthia, the first there, have announced they're opening this weekend. Verbier has also posted images of groomers smoothing their slopes ahead of what appears to be an imminent opening but ironically Glacier 3000 near Gstaad, which had planned to open on Saturday 4th, has announced it will delay to Wednesday 9th while it clears away excess snowfall and prepares slopes having previously delayed an October opening due to too little snow.
Despite all the snowfall, the warm period up to the latter half of October means that bases on glaciers are still bellow historic averages for early November, but making up lost ground.
There are now more than a dozen glacier areas open in Austria, Italy and Switzerland but still none in France, most have been closed in recent days though due to the current conditions which are expected to continue through the weekend. Chatel is pictured above on Friday 3rd November.
Significant snowfall has also been reported in other areas including the Pyrenees and the Tatra mountains in the Czech and Slovak Republics.
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