Up to 1 meter of fresh snow in the Alps, snowfalls down to 900 m

Weather forecasts were right on target, and after a long wait snow has returned to blanket the Italian mountains in white. The first snowflakes already fell yesterday, but it was overnight that the storm delivered its best, dumping fresh snow across the Alps with noteworthy precipitation especially in Trentino Alto Adige.

This morning brought a white awakening under hazy skies for the resorts of the north-west and a white awakening with heavy snowfalls for the resorts of the north-east. Spells of heavy snow affected Trentino Alto Adige, Friuli, and the Veneto Dolomites.
The snow reached not only the high-altitude ski lifts, but also the valley villages, blanketing the centers of Corvara, Ortisei, Canazei, and other Dolomite resorts, with intense precipitation especially in border areas such as Plan de Corones.

Sassolungo Dolomites

Blizzard at Plan de Corones

Snow in downtown Canazei

Up to 1 meter of snow in Austria

While on the Italian side of the Alps snow accumulations did not exceed 20/30 cm, the same cannot be said of the Austrian ski resorts, where the storm brought heavy snowfalls all the way down to the valleys.
The glaciers of the Austrian Tyrol stocked up on snow, with accumulations exceeding 70 cm almost everywhere and slopes buried in fresh snow across today’s top ski destinations.
Massive snowfalls hit Stubai, Pitztal, Hintertux (1 meter of fresh snow), and Sölden, where preparations are underway for the opening round of the 2014/2015 Alpine Ski World Cup.
The White Circus was hit by a blizzard that spared nothing from the 3,000 meters of the Rettenbach glacier down to the 1,300 meters of Sölden.
Here too, as in Italy, snowfalls pushed down to medium-low altitudes with snow reaching 1,000 meters, but with decidedly larger accumulations than in Italian villages.

Hintertux

It keeps snowing in the Apennines

The Alps were not the only protagonists of this early taste of winter: the freezing air coming from the north also hit the Apennines, bringing snow particularly to the ski resorts of Abruzzo.
While snowfall is tapering off in the Alps, at Abruzzo ski resorts such as Ovindoli, Roccaraso, and Campo Imperatore it continues to snow and the snow line is dropping.
In central Italy, snowfalls are forecast through the second half of Friday the 24th.

Below are the splendid images of today’s snowfall: