Meribel Snow Report: 11th March 2013

What is going on with the weather? It has been random and changeable of late, with wind, snow, rain, sun, clouds and huge temperature variations, sometimes all on the same day. The forecast has been even more random and bears scant resemblance to actual conditions. I understand that mountain weather forecasting is difficult, but the predictions have been so inaccurate this week that I suspect the local weathermen have gone away on holiday and set their computers to generate random data. Can we really we expecting minus 20C in mid-March?

Despite changeable weather, snow conditions remain good. The upper pistes still have lovely dry snow on them and the lowest runs now are spring-like, ie a thin layer of pleasantly slushy snow on a firm base. On cold mornings, the lower slopes can be a bit hard, but if you set out a little later in the morning, the snow tends to have softened nicely. All the pistes are still open and the snow depths are still excellent. If the forecast can be believed, there will be more snow and low temperatures this week, so conditions should remain good. If you are coming to Méribel for Easter, you are likely to find far more snow than usual.

Off-piste, conditions are better than usual for March. This weekend we have been enjoying the 10-15cm of fresh snow that fell on Friday, and lower down there is already gorgeous spring snow.

Although the sun is shining today, I’ve posted some photos taken over this weekend when the clouds were looming and the light was flat. Looking back over these reports, I notice a predominance of blue skies and sunshine in my photos, which is unrepresentative of the unusually cold and snowy weather this winter. My photos, I’m sorry to say, reflect my own fair-weather-skier preferences, rather than average weather conditions.

The slopes are remarkably quiet this week considering that this is the normally-bustling Paris half term holiday. The way the various holiday dates fell this year meant the popular Paris half term came well after the UK and Belgian holiday, so the ski area has never felt rammed with skiers. It may also be that fewer Parisians have come to the Alps this winter because of France’s economic woes. There certainly seem to be fewer enormous black 4x4 Paris-registered vehicles in the resort than usual. Whatever the reason, I’m delighted not to have queued anywhere at the lifts for more than a few minutes or experienced piste rage when pushy Parisians trample all over the backs of my skis. All in all, this has been an exceptionally good winter. Let's hope that it continues for the last month or so....