Snow falling at noon Friday 26 February, at 1,000 metres, below Crans-Montana, Valais

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The locals and visitors from other parts of Switzerland will have their mountains to themselves again this weekend, with most of Europe’s school winter holidays over. Expect to climb high for decent snow, with warmer temperatures for the past few days thinning lower slopes. The outlook is brightening for the weekend but the picture remains mixed.

Chamonix was off to a bumpy start: trains and buses were not running between Le Châtelard-Frontière and Chamonix-Mont-Blanc Friday morning due to heavy snowfalls.

Weather forecast

MeteoSwiss predicts temperatures rising to 10C during the day on the plain, lows around freezing. In the mountains, rain and snow will alternate, with the snowline at 800m at night, but temperatures rising: at 2,000 metres the high Friday of -6C will rise to freezing point Saturday. The snowline will be at 2,000m. The Alps are expected to have 20-30cm fresh snow, but up to 40cm in western areas. High winds are likely at times in the Jura.

Avalanche bulletin

Note that the avalanche danger has reached “critical”, 4/5 in parts of the Alps, following snowfalls and warming temperatures: Chablais, Trient, Champex, Great St Bernard. Natural avalanches are likely to occur above 2,000 metres.

Avalanche-prone areas this weekend include all steep slopes above 2,000 metres in the Vaud and Fribourg Alps, in the western Bernese Oberland and in the remaining Valais areas. The avalanche danger should recede, particularly in western areas, on Saturday and will remain unchanged Sunday. Details from the Swiss federal institute for snow and avalanche research.

Resort news

Les Monts, Jura, 23 February 2010 (photo: Shirley Curran)

Nendaz is holding a full moon party on the slopes Saturday night 27 February, with wine and pasta dinner, Alpine horns and skiing, of course. Verbier: Tzoumaz is opting for a full moon luge run Friday and Saturday nights and there is a super G race on Saturday. Crans-Montana is preparing for the Women’s World Cup ski races 5-7 March, hoping there will be better snow than was the case in Vancouver for the Olympics. Note that Friday night skiing is canceled in Crans-Montana 26 February due to poor conditions. Villars is offering a special CHF10 full moon party pass, linked to a chance to win a ticket to London.

Jura report, by Shirley Curran

All our installations are running most of the time at Crozet, Menthières and the Col de la Faucille, although there has been trouble with very high winds this week and a few hundred skiers had to be bused back to Crozet from Lélex when a blizzard shut down the installations.

Sadly the week of rain and mild weather has really softened the wonderful cover of snow that we had, so that we are sometimes skiing on a hard corrugated
surface first thing, then on slush in the late afternoon – and the crowds still come, as this has been one of the peak holiday weeks. Our best hope is that after
the inclement weather that is predicted for the weekend and the start of next week, we get the cold spell that is promised for next Thursday and new falls of
powder snow. Watch this space!

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