Fresh Falls Brings World’s Thickest Snowpack Towards 5m
Fresh Falls Brings World’s Thickest Snowpack Towards 5m
Published : 24-Feb-2024 06:39
Heavy snowfall on high slopes in the Alps has seen the deepest snowpack in the world edge towards the 5 metre mark.
Unusually, The alps have had the world's deepest snow all of this season, a title normally held by a US or Japanese ski area, however the 'El Nino Effect' seems to be suppressing snowfall in North America and East Asia.
The Alps raced to a 4 metre base soon after Christmas thanks to plenty of November and December snowfall with French areas including Chamonix, Tignes, Les Arcs and Flaine the only ones in the world to pass 4 metres.
The warm weather and lack of snowfall of the past month though saw most drop back below 4 metres, with only Alpe d'Huez hanging on to the 4m mark ad of last Thursday.
With the new snowfall of the past 48 hours though, Flaine and Les Arcs are back to 4 metres and Alpe d'Huez has reached 4.8 metres, the deepest in the world this year. Usually somewhere reaches 5 metres by March, sometimes 6 in Europe and as much as 8 or 9 metres in Asia and North America before the spring thaw starts to win over any late fresh snowfall.
48 hour snowfall totals in the Alps have reached 80cm with the Stubai Glacier posting the biggest numbers, then Glacier 3000 near Gstaad 60cm and Courchevel, Alpe d'Huez and Solden reporting 50cm so far.
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