Snowfall at the Stubaier Glacier. | Image: Stubaier Gletscher Facebook
Snow has come early to a wide swath of the Europe’s Alps with Yahoo News reporting more than a meter of snow fell during a recent storm.
“September featured several weather extremes in Europe that included out-of-season levels of snowfall, torrential rains and flooding, and some of the coldest temperatures since spring,” said a story from The Cool Down (TCD), carried by Yahoo News. “The Met Office, the United Kingdom’s national weather and climate service, tweeted in mid-September that ‘as cold air digs in, over a meter of snow could also fall over parts of the Alps,’ per Bloomberg.
“The forecast turned out to be accurate … [h]istoric amounts of snow piled up high in the Alps, which in some spots were buried by 3 to 5 feet of the white stuff,” TCD reported. “Several weather reporting stations in Austria reported record-cold temperatures in September.”
TCD/Yahoo’s reporting was confirmed by several online trade journals for the ski industry.
Planet Ski, for example noted that snow has already fallen on the Alps several times in September, with the heaviest occurrence being the most recent one.
“As more resorts open, more snow is falling,” wrote Planet Ski. “It’s turning into one of the best autumns for skiing in recent memory though the temperature is set to warm up.
“Heavy snow fell at altitude in the Alps over the weekend – up to half a meter in places,” Planet Ski said. “The open glacier areas are in excellent conditions for the time of year and more have opened in recent days.”
Among the ski resorts that opened in late-September or early-October due to the welcome early snow are: Hintertux, Kaunertal, Pitztal, Soelden, and Stubai, in Austria; Passo Stelvio and Val Senales, in Italy; and Saas-Fee and Zermatt in Switzerland.
Additional ski areas across the alps have announced that they plan to open in the coming week.
SnowBrains is reporting that the snow stranded drivers at a number of mountain passes and resulted in road closures.
“The Flüela Pass in Switzerland, which connects Davos to the Engadin Valley, has seen almost half a meter (20 inches) of snowfall in the last 48 hours,” according to SnowBrains. “The mountain pass road had to be closed briefly to allow for road services to clear the road for traffic.
“Likewise, the Stelvio Pass in Switzerland, which connects the Upper Valtellina with South Tyrol, saw masses of snow, surprising unsuspecting motorists on the mountain pass,” SnowBrains continued. “A German group of Porsche enthusiasts got caught in the snowstorm, and some needed to be towed.”
Zugspitze, the highest peak in Germany, also reported heavy snowfall from the most recent storm.