Patrick Thorne Inthesnow.com Tue, 02 May 2023 11:17 UTC
There have been some big snowfalls on high slopes in the Alps on the first day of May.
Most ski areas are already closed for the season but several dozen remain open in the Alps, and the latest snowfall continues a trend of regular snowfall through spring, after an often dry winter.
Tignes and Val d'Isere (pictured this morning), which are still open until next weekend, reported 20cm of fresh snowfall above 2,000m this morning, and it has continued to snow heavily through the day.
On Saturday, a solo backcountry skier was killed in an avalanche near Breckenridge, CO. The 31-year-old man was skiing a northeast-facing couloir on Bald Mountain, or Baldy, southeast of Breck. His girlfriend reported him missing when he didn't return her phone calls.
PRELIMINARY REPORT: A solo skier was caught, buried, and killed in a small but long-running avalanche. The avalanche started at about 13,200 feet on an east-facing slope. It ran approximately 1,300 feet. The avalanche began in dry, wind-drifted snow and entrained wet snow in the track of the avalanche path. Summit County Sheriff's deputies, Summit Rescue Group, and Flight for Life all responded and performed a search and recovery in the late evening hours of April 29 and early morning hours of April 30.
CAIC staff will visit the site on April 30 and publish more details as they become available. We will issue a full report next week.
Our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.
An avalanche in Samnaun, Switzerland, swept away two female skiers around 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 29, 2023, who were skiing in the ski area of Ischgl-Samnaun, which is a popular cross-border resort in Austria and Switzerland.
The women were skiing on a path typically used by snow ploughs slightly above the groomed run, when a wet avalanche was released above them. The women noticed the avalanche and tried to outski it but both got swept away. One of the women, aged 54, was only partially buried and was found straight away by mountain rescue. She was flown with mild injuries to a hospital in Zams, Austria.
Capital area residents in Iceland opened their eyes this morning to a blanket of white outside their window. Snow began falling yesterday and measured 10 cm [3.9 in] deep this morning at the Icelandic Met Office. While residents of Reykjavík and the surrounding area are not unused to seeing some falling flakes at this time of year, Meteorologist Teitur Arason of the Icelandic Met Office says this much snow in late April is indeed a rare occurrence.
April records in Spain are beginning to fall. As temperatures rise into the 30s Celsius and heat across southern Iberia continues to intensify, local records are being passed. AEMET, the Spanish Met. Service has highlighted 38C for Cordoba and Seville with heat advisories on Thursday. Exceeding that value at this time of year would be "something absolutely unusual, very outstanding."
Seville has already seen 33C, Madrid's April record is 30.1C and forecast to see 31 even 32 by Friday. Jerez Airport in the south looks to have exceeded its monthly record too. They are toppling and there are more days of heat to come. This is more like a summer setup and around 10 degrees warmer than usual.
Comment: Meanwhile towards the southeastern end of the Eurasia landmass at roughly the same latitudes as southern Iberia:
On March 24th, Alta Ski Area broke its all-time season snowfall record of 748″ set in the winter of 1981-82. It took less than a week to surpass 800″.
Today, after getting 7″ of new snow in the last 24 hours, the legendary Utah ski area has surpassed 900″ of total season snowfall for the first time in its history.
Wow.
Alta is currently sitting at 901″ with a 195″ base.
Despite being the resort with the most snow in North America, if not the world, Alta closed on Sunday, April 23rd. However, the resort will continue to measure snow through the end of April.
A rare strong cold front has put the brakes on spring warmth, with most parts of China seeing the mercury drop sharply since Thursday.
Temperatures dropped by as much as 20 C in parts of Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, which were hit by heavy snow, the National Meteorological Center said.
Long periods of rain and snow are rarely seen in April, the center said, adding that some areas had experienced their latest spring snowfall since records began.
Elsewhere, heavy rain, thunderstorms and hail hit some areas in Guizhou, Hunan and Guangdong provinces, the center said.
On Thursday in Shanxi, as much as 24 centimeters of snow fell in some areas while others were hit with heavy rain, according to the provincial meteorological service, which added that many weather stations in southern Shanxi had record precipitation for late April.
A man died Saturday after he and two others were caught in an avalanche in a closed-off area of Lake Louise Ski Resort.
In a statement, the resort in Banff National Park said the avalanche happened around 2:20 p.m. in the West Bowl area.
When crews arrived at the scene, they determined that a group entered the closed-off area and triggered a size 3 avalanche. None of the people were wearing avalanche safety equipment, the resort said.
According to AHS EMS, three people were buried in the snow, two partially and one fully. The two people partially buried suffered minor injuries while the fully buried individual died.
Heavy snow fell in central Colorado, on Saturday, April 22.
Accumulation would be more likely in the mountainous areas of the state, and travel disruptions were possible in mountain passes, the National Weather Service said.
This footage by @hiracing shows heavy snow falling in his backyard in Woodland Park, a suburb of Colorado Springs. In another Tweet, he showed that 4 inches of snow had accumulated in his area. Credit: @hiracing via Storyful
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Comment: Meanwhile towards the southeastern end of the Eurasia landmass at roughly the same latitudes as southern Iberia: