February 2022

Issued: 23rd February 2022 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European RoundupNorth American RoundupAsia Roundup WORLD OVERVIEW It has been a week of quite unsettled weather in many parts of the world. Storms impacted much of North America and much of Europe bringing disruptive, strong winds to many areas along with more snowfall.  As a result of the latter, in most areas, the unusual trend of a declining snowpack in the first 4-6 weeks of the year has now been reversed. There was fresh snowfall in the Alps, Carpathians and Pyrenees as well as for Scandinavia and Scotland, the latter enabling centres there to open by far the most terrain of the season so far at the weekend. In North America the main…

Issued: 16th February 2022 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European RoundupNorth American RoundupAsia Roundup WORLD OVERVIEW Some snowfall, if not a huge amount, in most areas of the world over the past seven days.  Even New Zealand's Mt Hutt reported 10cm (4") at the weekend and it is still summertime there.  In Europe, there was light to moderate snowfall across the Alps with some snowfall reported in the Dolomites and Pyrenees. Snowfall too up in Scotland and Scandinavia. There’s been little change in the weather trend of the past few weeks now in North America with continuing dry, sunny and rather warm weather in the west, cold and snowy in the east. With dry and warm weather for nearly two months up…

Most snowboarding injuries are to the lower arm and wrist and are mainly seen in beginners and children who are learning the sport and are more likely to put their hands out when they fall, causing sprains and fractures from the impact. Elite athletes, including those competing at the current Beijing Olympics, are also susceptible to this type of injury due to travelling at high speeds and performing tricks on jumps. But now a new test for measuring the impact performance of wrist protectors worn by snowboarders has been developed at Manchester Metropolitan University Institute, in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University. Researchers from the two universities have developed the new testing device that can replicate injury risk scenarios and test…

Issued: 9th February 2022 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European RoundupNorth American RoundupAsia Roundup WORLD OVERVIEW A rather snowy week for many areas with the central and eastern Alps, large swathes of Scandinavia, southeastern European countries like Bulgaria, the US northeast (again), Alaska and Japan (again) all posting decent dumps in the last seven days.  In many cases, seven-day totals have been as much as 50cm (20”) or more at the luckiest resorts in countries like Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Japan and the US. Many of these accumulations have come quickly too in 24-48 hour storms, often accompanied by gale force winds which have closed ski slopes while they blew through and set avalanche danger levels up to high levels. The…

A second heavy snowstorm in five days has been hitting the Alps in the past 24 hours, meaning an increasing number of ski areas are reporting at least 50cm and some more than a metre of snowfall now from this storm and the previous one at the end of last week. While good news for ski area bases in the longer term, all the snow has been closing slopes and in some cases access roads and sending avalanche danger up to levels 3 (“Considerable”) and 4 (“High”) on the scale to a maximum of 5.  Austria’s Tirol region is at level 4.  Repeated studies have shown the highest level of avalanche accidents happen with danger levels set at 3 and…