Wild and windy days in La Plagne this week

Rain rain stay away!

featured in Snow Report Author Anita Gait, La Plagne Reporter Updated 1 April 2016

Wild and windy days in La Plagne this week, as the sunshine and blue skies retreated in the face of fog and cloud and forecast rain.

I hope you didn’t miss me too much but I had to take last week away from La Plagne, I headed back to the UK for Easter weekend. Spring had truly sprung in the UK which made it rather odd to return to La Plagne this week to wild winds and grey skies and some very unspring like weather. I believe there were some beautiful sunny days here whilst I was away and the Easter crowds made the most of the warm weather picnicking on the pistes and drinking in the sun, enjoying the deck chairs and terraces dotted around La Plagne, but by the time I returned it was a whole different story.

I returned home yesterday to howling winds that knocked chairs off balconies and stole signs from outside bars. It had mercifully died down this morning and I headed out in to what looked like a clear and bright blue sky day. Alas I was tricked and by the time I had made it from the centre to the top of the Grande Rochette. I emerged into a very different kind of day, clouds were rolling in from all directions, Courchevel had vanished behind a bank of clouds and they were rising swiftly from the centre of resort also. I had decided to head over to Montchavin in order to check out the snow conditions at the lower levels and on my journey there and back I passed through all manner of cloud formations and at occasional surreal moments stood in a patch of clear visibility with a bank of cloud above and below me. Down in the trees of Montchavin the clouds were swirling through the branches in long wispy tendrils that looked so much like smoke that we expected to come upon a bonfire part way down the run.

The weather is looking like staying just as grotty over the next few days, patches of intermittent cloud and sun with unfortunately forecasted rain, and not just at the lower levels but sadly rain forecasted at 2250m and higher. So much for our last few weeks of the season being spent in deckchairs enjoying outdoor Après bands and lazy afternoons in the sun, looks like we’re going to be sheltering indoors or getting soggy on the pistes... let's hope not!

The saddest part about the impending rain is that the snow is actually holding up really really well, at this point of the season we are looking so good for snow coverage, yes it’s a little icy and a little slushy and a little brown in places but the majority of the mountain is open and still in great conditions, however if the rain comes as predicted (its predicted over 4 out of the next 5 days) that’s going to make quick work of the snow we have left. So here’s what I need you all to do, remember when we were doing our snow dances at the start of season? Remember how well that worked? Right well now we need to do it again, we don’t need it to snow exactly, we’ll settle for the sun coming out and the rain not arriving, it’s held off for 2 days already and we only need it to hold off for 23 more!

So sunshine dances at the ready please, let’s try and finish this 15/16 winter season in style.