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30 MARCH 07
March has probably been the best month of
the season. Temperatures have been yoyo-ing all over the place with
valley temps ranging from mid teens in the afternoons down to way below
in the nights. Mid march saw quite a lot of snow fall, immediately
followed by a cold snap with temps getting down to -9oC in
the town at night. Result was a great month with good snow, and more
importantly lots of fresh snow, providing plenty of opportunity for skiing
in sunny warm conditions as well as some great powder days. Nice,
especially after such a sketchy start to the season!!
Easter is fast approaching, the last
busy period of the season. Forecasts are saying a little more snow
should arrive, so a nice top-up of the white stuff prior to Easter should
make for nice conditions.
At the moment, snow depths are reported
as :
Lower slopes (2000m): 223cm
Upper slopes (2800m): 383cm
4 MARCH 07
Since the last report, this unseasonably
warm weather has persisted so the amount of snow at bottom of the valley
(which about 1050m elevation) continues to be much much lower than
usual. Which means its also been wet and rainy, particularly over the
last week or so ... in fact from thursday til saturday it was pretty
much non stop.
Sounds nasty? But actually that's good
news! Above 1500m its been dumping like crazy!! Which is great
news for skiing (which mostly starts at 1800m and goes up). Snow levels
are good and quite typical for this time of year .... and that's despite
all the panic press reports of "no snow in the alps"!
Currently snow conditions are reported as:
Depth of lower slopes: 250 cm at 2000 metres
Depth of upper slopes: 350 cm at 2800 metres
13 FEBRUARY 07
Snow started falling again in the Chamonix Valley in the middle of last week. Not exactly a huge dump, but
it did provide a gradual build up over several days. But temperatures
were still staying stubbornly high, so whilst the snow was falling on
the ski areas, it was still green at the bottom of the valley. Then,
last night, the temps dropped and we were all clearing snow off the cars
this morning! Local forecast is for more snow today and, with a new
disturbance coming in from the west, more snow on the ski areas forecast
for tomorrow as well.
Today, the whole valley is really looking
like a proper winter wonderland .... just as it should be! That's
great news for the upcoming half term holidays.
At the moment, snow depths are 175cm on
lower slopes (2000m) and 250cm on the upper slopes (2800m).
28 JANUARY 07
Most of Jan was unusually warm, with temps
getting as high as 10oC on a couple of days!! Quite unbelievable for
Jan! So at the bottom of the valley there was more rain than snow
and things were looking uncharacteristically green! Higher up,
2000m plus, where the skiing is, conditions were not so bad. It
wasn't exactly classic conditions, but there was snow cover. Then
finally, at the end of the month, the snow came!! And lots of it,
big proper dumps, falling fairly continuously on 23/24 Jan. And
then once the snow stopped, the weather cleared, and we had blue skies
and sun. Wonderful!! Even though its sunny, its still very cold,
keeping the snow in great shape.
Now the the whole valley is blanketed in
snow, the place is really looking how it should at this time of year!
Currently, the lower slopes (2000m) have
over 100cm snow depth and the upper slopes (2800m) have about 180cm.
NEW YEARS WEEK
The new year brought some much needed
snow with it. The unusually high temps had meant the skiing had
got a little sketchy in the last days of 06. It started raining on
New Years day, and as the day progressed it got colder and colder until
it was snowing in the valley by evening ... and it continued like that
for a couple of days.
By the end of the New Year week, there
was over 1m of snow depth at 2000m and about 1.5m on the higher slopes
at 2800m.
1st SNOW OF THE 06/07 SEASON
Everyone's been worried about lack of
snow this season, well the 1st major snow fall of the season happened
over night on 8/9 Dec. Here are a few photos of our garden taken
the morning after. We live just outside Chamonix, at about 925m
altitude. But most of the skiing in the Chamonix Valley is over
1800m, so imagine how much there is up the hill!!
photos taken 9am : Sat 9 December
2006
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