Yes, It Snowed Here, But If You REALLY Like Snow....

There seems to be a bit of snow on the ground at the moment in
the Austrian Alps. Photo via Twitter by Pipp Ionguere/La Meteo

Snow lovers here in Vermont are having a so-so winter so far. The season got off to a bang, but in December snowfall was lacking.

Things have picked up somewhat now in January, and now there's a decent, but not spectacular snow cover in most places in the Green Mountain State.

Some areas along the western slopes of the Green Mountains have picked up as much as 18 inches of snow in the past couple of days.

However, if you like ridiculous amounts of snow, though, head to Europe.  It's absolutely crazy.

Wild amounts of snow- feet of it in some places -  have fallen there in the past couple of weeks, and it does look pretty amazing. Even wilder, several more feet of snow might come down there in the coming days.

There's videos at the bottom of this post.

It looks amazing, especially in the Alps, but as you might imagine, three to seven or more feet of snow is dangerous, especially if it all comes within a week or so.

At least 17 people have died in the snow and storms in and near Austria, and hundreds of people were stranded. One Austrian ski resort reported seven feet of new snow in just seven days. 

Try to shovel that out!

Some of the dead were avalanche victims. Another person was killed when heavy snow broke branches. The snow and branches fell on a man, killing him.

About 600 people were stranded in an Austrian village when the area became cut off due to snow-blocked roads. A few hundred other people were trapped on a train for hours because a snow-laen tree fell onto tracks near Kitzbuehel, Austria, The Weather Channel reported.

The snow created the highest avalanche danger since at least 1999, authorities said. An additional four feet of snow might fall in the mountains during the rest of this week, forecasters said.

The snow extended pretty far south. It snarled traffic in the higher elevations of Lebanon this week. Athens, Greece was also pretty much shut down by the snow.

Here's a BBC report of the situation in Austria:



Here's another pretty wild news report:

Want Snow? Head To Europe

Want snow? Head to the highways near the French Alps
Then get stranded, as these people did.  

Much of the snow has melted away in northern New England, putting a crimp in winter sports.
True, the downhill ski areas still have snow for skiing and riding, but it's pretty thin otherwise in most areas.

Winter cold is returning to the Northeast later today and will stay put for quite awhile, and there will be little snowfalls. Some mixed precipitation is due next Saturday, as it looks now.

But I don't see any whopper snowstorms for awhile, anyway.

Where do you go for snow, then. There's the northern Rockies in the U.S., where winter storm warnings are flying for up to a foot of new snow, on top of recent snowfalls there.

If you really want snow, though, head to the French Alps. The only problem is, if you do it today. (Yeah, right) you might have trouble getting there.

A very heavy snowfall has stranded up to 15,000 travelers as roads became treacherous in the storm, and many people didn't put chains on their tires in time.

In addition to all that snow in the French Alps, gales have cut power in areas of Britain and France. Paris is expecting its first freeze in at least a year, and snow has spread to wide areas of Europe, including the Netherlands, Germany and the Balkans.

For those New Englanders who can't travel, the snow will return eventually, for those who want it. Much of the first half of January looks like it will be on the cold side, which gives us chances for some snow anyway.

Maybe we'll get flurried to death like we often do in the northern New England mountains. An inch here, two inches there. Over time, that adds up, as long as we don't get any mega thaws again.

More Dramatic Video of Europe Storms

Things continue to go from bad to worse in Europe as a series of storms continue to batter the continent.

What may be the worst in a a parade of destructive storms is about to hit Wales, Ireland and England.

Two dramatic videos in this post help demonstrate what happens when these storms move inland, and drop tons of snow on mountainous regions.

The first video we see is what happened in a town in northern Italy after they had quite a snowstorm, to put it mildly.




The second video shows an incredible avalanche in South Tyrol in the Alps. The event in the video came after several feet of snow fell in the region recently.

Stay with the video. Things don't look too terribly bad at first, and then.........

Wimpy Snowfall Over, Midsize Snowfall Midweek?

It's cloudy and warm across Vermont and surrounding states as dawn breaks Sunday morning.

Before and After view of an Alps town with
last week's snow.  

That so-called storm that blew through Saturday afternoon and night was a yawner, with most places in the northern halves of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire getting an inch or so of snow, with a little more than that in the mountains.

Another storm is going to spread wintry weather today and tomorrow in a stripe from Texas to New Jersey, but that storm will completely miss the North Country.

Yet another storm will blow through at midweek. As it stands now, it looks like places up near the Canadian border might get a few inches of snow, with closer to six to eight inches more to the south.

That's all subject to change, of course, but that's the way it looks now

Still another storm (there's a lot of 'em in this weather pattern) might come along in a week with maybe more snow, but it's too soon to get excited about that.

If you really want snow, go to the Austrian Alps. They got blasted by a huge snowstorm late last week which certainly ended complaints about a thin snow cover in those areas.

Opening doors became a hazard
after an epic snowstorm last
week in the Austrian Alps.

Photos of the Alps storm are scattered through this post. They came via Twitter.

Basketball anyone?
Challenging in the Alps now.