2024-2025 Snow Recap

The 2024-2025 season in Europe was mixed and can be split into two halves. We had a few solid storm cycles, especially early in the season, favoring the northern Alps, followed by a second half of the winter that favored the southern Alps. 

The season started out strong with a late November storm cycle that delivered significant snow to the northern Alps from France through Austria. The southern Alps weren't as fortunate with this cycle but the southern Swiss and Italian Alps saw decent totals. 

December was also a good month for the northern Alps, with a good storm toward the end of the first week of the month and probably the best storm cycle of the season from the 19th to the 24th. This was a series of anomalously cold Nordstau storms that buried much of the northern Alps and brought some solid totals to the southern Alps in Switzerland and Italy. This storm cycle set up the northern Alps for the Christmas holiday and the rest of the season. 

January was another good month for the northern Alps, with decent-sized storms in the first, second, and final weeks. The storm track remained out of the north for the most part, keeping the conditions good throughout the month. The southern French Alps did fairly well with this pattern, while it was drier farther east in the southern Alps.

In February, the pattern began to shift, with storms entering the Alps from the south and west. This is generally a warmer pattern that favors the southern French, Swiss, and Italian Alps. As the pattern slowly changed, storms were somewhat limited, and February was the driest month of the winter. This pattern persisted from February through the end of the season, leading to a solid March and a wet and snowy April for this region. The northern Alps suffered during this period, with February through April being particularly dry.

In early April, a strong and cold storm brought significant snow to the northern side of the eastern Alps in Austria, providing some of the best conditions of the season for this region. However, this storm took an easterly track, and totals dropped off drastically to the west. 

In mid-April, the biggest storm of the season brought massive snow totals, intense precipitation, high avalanche danger, landslides, and power outages to the southern Alps. This storm even cut off some resorts from the outside for several days. This unusual Sudstau was strong enough to bring significant snow to the northern Alps in France and Switzerland, as well as to the western side of the southern French Alps.

Unfortunately, the high avalanche danger and strong April sun limited opportunities to take advantage of this late-season dump in many of the hardest-hit locations. Also, the snow depth had nearly disappeared at low elevations by this time, so the available terrain was limited. 

Below are the monthly precipitation anomalies for November through April.

The active Spring pattern continued through most of May as well, with several high-elevation snow events that brought significant snow. Fresh snow and soft turns were often possible during the month at higher elevations. 

I hope you have a wonderful summer and fall, and again, thank you for reading the Europe Daily Snow this season!

Luke Stone
Forecaster, OpenSnow

Alps Regions:

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