Post your best current shots

[conropl]

One from yesterday :


Spending a night in the Swiss Alps by Tounis_9, on Flickr

Looks like a great place to spend the night.

Just curious... how much longer does winter last there? That is, when does the snow start receding instead of accumulating.

Pat

[Tounis]

Looks like a great place to spend the night.

Just curious... how much longer does winter last there? That is, when does the snow start receding instead of accumulating.

Pat

It really depends on a lot of factors. At the altitude where I took the picture (around 1100m over the sea level), you won't see snow on the ground during the whole Winter. For example, there wasn't any snow in the second week of January, with temperatures around 12-15 °C (around 55-60 °F I believe), but such temperatures are unusual at this time of the year. At 2000m and above, snow is permanent between late November and April.

Most of the time, the first snowfall that last for more than one or two days come in late November /early December, and the Snow start receding around mid March. We usually don't have much snow after March.
Then, there are some exceptional years like 2013 when we had frequent snowfalls around 1500-2000m until late May. This picture was taken on the 28th of June last year, around 2000m, and there was still a lot of snow left, as you can see. 1999 was another special year, with around 4 to 5 meters of snow coming in 3 days. Going outside was so dangerous because of the avalanches that many schools had to close for several days. Being unpredictable is one of the main characteristic of Winter.