Blizzard batters parts of the Alps

Extremely heavy snowfall forced Val d’Isère, Saas Fee and Alagna to temporarily close on Monday, whilst Tignes only managed to open 2 lifts due to the extreme weather.

The weekend skiing in France was fantastic with largely sunny skies on Saturday and Sunday combined fresh powder off-piste. However Monday wa a completely different story in the Espace Killy. A metre of snow had fallen since Sunday morning and was still coming down hard on Monday. Tignes only managed to open two lifts on Monday morning, including one drag lift on the beginner slopes and the Tichot chair from Val Claret.

It was a similar story in the northern Italian Alps, close to the French and Swiss borders, where it has been snowing extremely heavily. Alagna has received 100cm of snow since Sunday morning and all the lifts were shut on Monday due to huge amounts of fresh snow.

Zermatt and Saas Fee both got lots of snow on Monday, and Saas Fee had to temporarily close as a result of the high winds and heavy snow, but conditions should be fantastic when they re-open.

Elsewhere in the Alps, the sun has been getting through and resorts in the Southern Dolomites enjoyed a bright weekend.

The outlook is for large snowfalls in the south western Alps. Austrian resorts are expecting between 10cm and 30cm of snow for the week ahead, and Isola 2000 in France was expecting 15cm on Monday and 22cm on Tuesday.

The eastern side of the Alps isn’t expecting anywhere near as much snow, but temperatures are forecast to be low so the snow will stay in great condition.