Author: Ed Ockelton

The return of winter

Well, after a few glorious weeks of skiing on well prepared pistes under blue skies and sunshine, winter has returned to the Portes du Soleil.

The temperature has dropped quite significantly and it is currently snowing hard! I managed to steal a few runs this morning before the weather closed in and the conditions were great – nice powder on a now quite substantial base.

The cold weather and snow look set to continue for a fews days which should set things up nicely for the winter holidays…

Weather update – 22.02.07

More snow forecast for this weekend:

GENERAL SYNOPSIS
Weak high cell 1016 hpa over Switzerland, weakening. Complex low area 962-972 hpa far northwest of the British Isles, drifting east. Linked disturbance expected to reach the Alps by Saturday
TODAY – THURSDAY FEBRUARY 22 2007
Fairly sunny – cold in the morning – mild on sunny slopes later
SKY CONDITIONS (cloud – sunshine) : clear or partly cloudy – high cloud coming in from the west towards the evening – period of sunshine close to 90%.
PRECIPITATION : none.
WIND  – ground level : variable light.
  – mid mountain : SSW light to moderate.
  – high mountain : variable -> SW light to moderate.
TEMPERATURE : min -3°C – max +11°C.
ISOTHERM 0°C :  1800 -> 2000 m.
ISOTHERM -10°C :  3800 m.
OVERNIGHT
Cloudy
SKY CONDITIONS (cloud) : cloudy – partly cloudy at times.
PRECIPITATION : none.
WIND  – aloft : SW light.
TEMPERATURE : -4°C.
TOMORROW – FRIDAY FEBRUARY 23
Changeable – scattered cloud crossing over – slight evening precipitation risk
SKY CONDITIONS (cloud – sunshine) : partly cloudy in the morning – becoming cloudy – high cloud coming in from the west in the afternoon, fairly thick at times – period of sunshine close to 50%.
PRECIPITATION : slight late afternoon shower risk
WIND  – aloft : SW light to moderate.
TEMPERATURE :  min -4°C – max +9°C.
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 24
Mainly cloudy – rain in the afternoon
SKY CONDITIONS (cloud – sunshine) : mostly cloudy – cloudy at times in the morning with fleeting sunny spell – overcast in the afternoon – period of sunshine close to 100%.
PRECIPITATION : starting up towards the middle of the day – light at first – moderate at times towards the evening – rain-snow limit towards 1300 m.
WIND  – aloft : SW moderate -> NW strong.
TEMPERATURE :  dropping highs.
EXTENDED OUTLOOK UNTIL TUESDAY FEBRUARY 27 2007
Sunday : gloomy – light to moderate precipitation – rain-snow limit dropping towards 1000 m. Monday : changeable and cold – morning snow showers – sunny spells spreading out in the afternoon. Tuesday : changeable – slight shower risk – getting milder.
Forecast reliability : fairly good until Sunday – poor thereafter.

 

 

Weather data

The long range weather forecasts are once again teasing us with snow on the horizon, starting on or around the 6th Feb.

For those geeks amongst us, it is quite useful to keep checking back to this chart:

Although to the untrained eye, this looks like a kid has gone mad with a colouring pen, in reality it is a useful chart for snow prediction.

There are two sets of lines in these forecast graphs;

1) The top set represents temperatures at 850 Hpa (approx 1450 m altitude)

There are quite a few lines, each one telling us one possibility of the GFS forecast model. The closer together they are, the more certain the prediction.
The thick red line is the 30-year average.
The thick blue line is the most probable model run.
The grey line is the average of all the model runs.
The scale up the left hand side gives temperature in degree celsius.

2) The lower set of lines represents precipitation, following the same arrangement as the temperatures. The total precipitation at a given location is proportional to the area bounded by each line. The scale on the right marks precipitation in mm (for rain) or cm (for snow).

The more in the future a prediction, the less reliable it is.

The forecasts are run four times a day and are known as “00z”, “06z”, “12z” and “18z”. They are generally available on about a 6 hour delay, so you can see the 00z until around midday, when it will change to the 06z and so on… The data input into the forecasts changes on each run as follows:

00z – Weather buoy, satellite data, shipping data, country data, NOAA data
06Z – Weather buoy, satellite data, shipping data
12Z – Shipping data, Satellite data ONLY
18Z – Weather buoy, satellite data, shipping data, country data, NOAA data

So there you have it – we can all easily become amateur meteorologists!

Snow update

I have been a bit slow at updating this blog recently, but I know that everyone is desperate to find out what the snow conditions are like. The answer? Not bad at all. We haven’t got massive depths, but the Linga, Pre La Joux, Avoriaz and Les Crossets domains are superb. Some of the other areas in the Portes du Soleil are a bit ropey but that seems to be down to poor piste management rather than lack of snow.

The UK media has done us a massive favour this year. Their doom & gloom reports has meant that guests have turned up not really expecting to do any skiing, when in fact there are plenty of runs open.

I even read in the Telegraph last week that Chatel was shut, or suffering badly or something along those lines, whereas the reality was that the North facing areas of the Chatel domain were open with great skiing over to Avoriaz. I think that on slow news days, reporters are quite happy to get un substantiated information from organisations such as the ski club and print it without checking the facts out first.

An end to the drought?

Christmas and New Year have both come and gone, and during this time snow has been quite thin on the ground. Although the snow conditions haven’t been great, we have been lucky in that the Portes du Soleil (specifically Avoriaz) has apparantly had the best snow in the whole of the European Alps. This wasn’t as exciting as it sounds with low depths at the top of the slopes and artificial snow at the bottom but despite the conditions most of our guests have reported excellent skiing over the festive period.

Thankfully the conditions have all changed for the better with heavy snow falling over the last 24 hours. With snow also forecast for tonight, and then again on Thursday we should hopefully be back to where we would normally expect to be at this time of year.

So is this simply a blip in the normal weather patterns – winter coming slightly later this year, or is it a sign of the dreaded global warming? Well given that this situation has happened before approximately every 15 years, and that in the past there has been even less snow, I tend to believe it is less to do with climate change, and more an illustration of the fact that we are dealing with the most unpredictable force in the world – mother nature. Just because the snow comes in November 10 years in a row is no guarantee that it will arrive in November during the 11th year!

And what of the claims that the European ski industry is dead, and that everyone should head to North America? The pundits who wrote those particular claims obviously have quite short memories becuase it was only 2 seasons ago that Whistler in Canada didn’t receive any significant snow until mid Feb!

Anyway, all speculation aside, the snow is here so lets enjoy it! We still have some January availability and we are offering discounts on everything that’s left. Also, we still have some spaces on our Off Piste Adventure Course on the 27th Jan – luxury accommodation and serious skiing!

Enjoy the snow…

Prospect of a cold winter

It is getting to that time of year when all the long range weather forecasts start to appear. Despite a mild (and lovely) Autumn so far, rumour has it that we are in for another harsh cold winter – possibly even colder than last year. This of course bodes well for those of us who enjoy skiing!

The evidence for this?

Well, firstly the holly bushes are apparantly weighed down with unusual amounts of berries, which is meant to signify a harsh winter to come.

Secondly, the waters around Cornwall have allegedly been cooler than usual this summer. Since these waters are fed by the gulf stream, and since the gulf stream keeps Europe warm during winter, then a cooler gulf stream could mean a colder winter.

I don’t know whether these are old wives’ tales or fact so if anyone can shed any light on the matter, I’d love to hear from you!