Henry Schniewind has published this interesting video of the Foglieta avalanche on the 5th January 2015. The "Fog" is one of the Ste Foy trade routes.

50,000 cars on the road and fresh snow have combined to make one of the worst transfer days in the last 20 years leaving thousands stranded across the French Alps in their cars and at airports.

Yan Giezendanner from Météo France, Chamonix is pessimistic. It is too warm in France and all the bad weather is hitting the UK and Scandinavia.

You don't need wind to create a slab but it helps. Think of it as an accellerator, like pouring petrol on a fire. Even without fresh snow wind can create new slabs in a few hours.

As we noted on twitter a large amount of fresh snow above 2000 meters and storm force winds have created considerable avalanche risk at altitude in the Pyrenees and Southern Alpes.

The 2013/2014 season saw 18 fatal avalanche incidents with 21 deaths in France. Well below the 30 year average.

La Clusaz may have opened the Balme sector of its ski area two weeks early on the 22 November but since that glorious week-end it has been a stressful start to the season for the resort director Pierr

It all seemed so positive last weekend. We were ski touring in the Belledonne. The resorts of Alpe d’Huez, la Clusaz, Montgenevre and Courchevel had opened ahead of schedule.

A little bit of snow science in the lab and in the field. The engineers are looking at a particular type of weak layer formed by surface hoar (aka frost).

It is not just the Alps that are having some strange weather (cold and snowy at altitude with continuing avalanche risk above 3000 meters) Australia is also being hit by some big storms with almost 4