In Europe, it has snowed a lot on the French mountains throughout the past week, with the heaviest snow leading up to the weekend. The snow is continuing today and is expected to continue for the next few days. Up to 60cm (2 feet) has been reported over the last week with resorts like Meribel, La Plagne and le Grand Bornand all reporting big falls.

The Vosges region, one of the lower mountain areas for ski resorts in the country has received a particularly notable covering of up to 50cm (20 inches) at just 1,200m. At Gerardmer, one of the region’s leading ski areas, Fabrice Clair, manager of the resort, told Skiinfo,

"It has snowed more than 50cm on one day, greatly increased the snow depth which had been very thin at the beginning of winter. It’s now 1.2m (4 feet) in place thanks to artificial snow, but there is an average layer of natural snow from 50 to 60cm over the entire ski area."

Across France as a whole Chamonix Mont-Blanc has the top snow depth of 4m (13.3 feet) with Oz en oisans and Vaujany below Alpe d’Huez at 3.2m (10.6 feet), Flaine and La Clusaz have 2.9m.

Switzerland also witnessed snowfalls last weekend. Arosa and Klosters in Grisons were among those issuing powder alarms on Saturday. Even more snow fell in the Valais with Champoussin receiving 60 cm (two feet) in only 48 hours. The resort issued just another powder alarm this morning because of a further 30cm (one foot) snowfall, as did its neighbour in the giant Portes du Soleil ski region, Morgins.

The Swiss WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF expects 10-20 cm of new snow for Switzerland’s’ northern slopes and for Lower Valais this afternoon – but also “widespread considerable avalanche danger”.

The deepest snow depths in Switzerland are at Lötschental and Engelberg with 262cm/245cm (8-9 feet) respectively . Andermatt, Saas Fee, Laax and St. Moritz each have two metres or more. All of them had some new snow in the last week.

Austria too has had a lot of fresh snow in the past week.

Martha Schultz of Mölltal glacier’s lift compay told Skiinfo the ski resort had 40cm (16 inches) of new snow last weekend so there were “very good conditions” on the slopes. “But please don’t ignore the current avalanche situation,” she added. On Sunday 30cm (a foot) of new snow in 24 hours had caused a powder alarm for the glacier, which currently has the greatest snow depth in Austria – three and a half metres (12 feet).

Willi Krüger of Pitztaler Gletscherbahnen told Skiinfo, “On the Pitztal Glacier the snow cover, which was already great, was topped by 30cm of fresh snow in 48 hours at the weekend. You can only call this ideal conditions”.

Sölden got 27 cm of new snow last week. They have a snow cover of 192cm (over six feet) on the glacier today. For this afternoon and for tomorrow more new snow is expected in Austria.

Italy has had a good deal of heavy snow across the country, leading to great powder conditions, but high avalanche risk. Monterosa has had some of the biggest falls of the past seven days with 72cm (2.4 feet) accumulated.

The Pyrenees are still looking very nice with more than 1.5m (five feet) of snow on the top of the slopes in Andorra.

In Eastern Europe there’s been a few inches of fresh snow at most resorts and conditions are now good at most areas across the region with up to 1.5m (five feet) of snow on upper slopes at Bulgaria’s Bansko.