Ski trips threatened by poor snowfall in Alps

(Please) let it snow, let it snow…

If you have a ski trip to the French Alps booked for this December you may want to keep a keen eye on the weather forecast, as many of the area’s biggest resorts remained closed over the weekend due to poor snowfall.

The second week of December is usually when enthusiastic skiers begin making their pilgrimages to Alpine slopes for some welcome powder therapy, but over the weekend many popular resorts like Chamonix Mont-Blanc and Val d’Isere were closed to skiers as barely any snow had fallen there. Other resorts were only able to open a fraction of their slopes.
Some locals are calling it the worst conditions at the start of a ski season since the 1970s (when presumably bell-bottom jeans made skiing rather difficult anyway).
The Alpine Skiing World Cup was supposed to be held in the resort of Courchevel, but lack of snow made that a little tricky, and the event has instead been moved to Are in Sweden.
While the limited skiing space didn’t prove too problematic this weekend, if these conditions continue throughout the week it could become a real issue for visitors. If the usual number of holiday makers for this time of year show up next weekend and are forced to use only a handful of the usual lifts and slopes, some are worried that it could cause chaos.

The forecast throughout the week remains unclear. Some are predicting the snow drought to persist into next weekend, and potentially through to Christmas, but conditions in the Alps can change quickly and some areas are likely to be luckier than others.
So if you’ve just bought a brand new bobbly hat in anticipation of your hard-earned ski trip, it might be time to cross your fingers and hope for the best.