This has been a week of excellent conditions with pistes beginning to harden under sunny skies. But current skiing weather is extremely varied; rain, snow and sunny spells interspersed with heavy cloud cover.

Western Canada has been stunningly cold with –37C in places while Fernie has serious powder after a 111cm dump of new snow. In the US, Snowbird (Utah) has 35cm of new snow and Timberline (Oregon) 69cm of fresh snow. Scottish Cairngorm (15-20cm) and Nevis Range (5-35cm) had 8cm and 5cm of new snow respectively.

It has been warm in Austrian Fieberbrunn (125-230cm) where a 2C daytime temperature brought rain to lower slopes. Ischgl (100-200cm) had poor visibility in the snowfall. French Val d'Isère (128-200cm) had a mixture of sun and cloud yesterday while Avoriaz (220-250cm) and Megeve (60-220cm) had light snowfall and white-out conditions, as did Swiss and Italian resorts.

Alpine temperatures are forecast to drop today ahead of forecast fresh powder across the range. Austrian Ischgl expects 42cm today and a further 8cm tomorrow, with snowfall continuing across Austria until Wednesday, reports the Ski Club of Great Britain. The rest of the Alps will also have useful amounts of new snow with French Flaine expecting 32cm of fresh snow today before skies clear again on Sunday. Canadian Whistler is forecast to receive heavy snow, as are Jackson Hole (some 60cm of new snow) and Timberline in the US.