Big snowfalls across Europe have led to some unusual happenings.
In the UK, ski instructors working in the country’s five year-round indoor ski centres have been going outdoors in their lunch breaks to check out the natural snowfall outside their snow centres (see attached picture from Castleford SNO!zone in North Yorkshire).
In France, resorts reporting record snowfall are saving money by not needing to power up their snow-making systems, and they’re selling more tickets despite the economic gloom because of all the snow, but an added financial burden is simply clearing the excess snow from the resort’s streets, lifts and other facilities.
“We have not seen snow as deep as our current 360cm since the winter of 1975. On the night of Friday, February 6th alone we received another metre of snow. These very big snowfalls require a lot of work clearing the snow and through January we have spent 120,000 Euros just on snow clearing in the resort. This quantity of snow means the avalanche risk off-piste is very high at level 4 on a scale up to a maximum of 5.” according to Gilles Gravier, manager of the Val d’Allos 1800 tourist office.
Elsewhere in Europe, ski resorts have continued to report still greater snow depths with resorts in Spain, Italy and Switzerland passing the 4, 5 and 7 metre maximum snow depths respectively.
In Spain, it is Sierra Nevada, Europe’s most southerly major ski area that has the country’s most snow, although all the major areas have base depths of at least two metres; in Italy it’s the glacier above Passo Tonale and in Switzerland the year round resort of Zermatt.
Where the snow is continuing to fall to excess the avalanche risk remains high off piste – typically at level 3 or 4 out of a the maximum of 5.
Other resorts reporting exceptional snow are to be found in Scotland, where up to 60cm (two feet) of snow accumulation on Cairngorm at Aviemore, coupled with low temperatures brought what some are claiming to be the best conditions in 20 years. Equally rare were the blue skies and wind-free days of the past week which led to over 10,000 people taking to the slopes of the country’s five ski centres at the weekend, with two of them having to close to new arrivals by mid-morning as capacity was reached.