Winter is finally here!
The mountains of the Pyrénées-Orientales were this morning covered in a fine coat of snow.
“It fell about ten centimeters last night and it will start again and intensify this evening.
It will snow heavily next night,” confirms Xavier Rousse of the Météo Pyrénées association.
Nearly 50 cm of snow is expected around 1700 meters altitude, up to 80 cm on the heights of Carlit.
“It's not exceptional but it represents the heaviest snowfall of the season,” he adds.
Reached by telephone this morning, the owner of the Le Yaka aux Angles hotel, Elsa Christofeul, confirms: “It has fallen 10 to 15 cm since yesterday evening.
Everything is white.
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“Here we are finally in a winter climate!
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As for the Pyrénées-Orientales, "the snowfall will weaken significantly tomorrow morning then the sky will clear up this Wednesday afternoon", reports Cyril Bonnefoy, meteorologist at Meteo Consult who notes that "the bulk of the precipitation will fall on the west and center of the Pyrenees.
Temperatures, apart from a few micro-warmths in places, should remain cool until March 5.
Enough to put a smile on everyone's faces, especially the ski resort directors.
“Here we are finally in a winter climate, with beautiful slopes and good conditions for the coming weekend,” confirms Jérôme Meunier, director of the Les Angles resort.
The snow level allows us to look forward to the second part of the season with confidence, with the Angles resort closing on April 14.
“Overall, attendance has been good so far, despite the area being only 60% open.
Our strength is to offer skiing but also many activities on the side.
With the snow falling, we are going to open the area to 80%,” indicates the director of Les Angles, which has had 250,000 skier days since the start of the season.
Read alsoTourism: snowfall deficit on all massifs
At Font-Romeu Pyrénées 2000, Jacques Alvarez, the director, 410,000 skier days since opening, is also relieved: “it's always more pleasant to have snow everywhere.
The vacationers have a smile.
With this snowfall, we will reach the resort closing date scheduled for April 1st.”
In any case, the 2023-2024 season already promises to be “very good”, as were the two previous ones.
“We will see depending on the activity in March if it will be the second or third best season under our belt.
If the cold and snow continue, skiers will continue to come.
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All this snow falling on the Carlit and Capcir massifs are encouraging signals sent to the inhabitants of the Roussillon and Aude plains, still in dire need of water, the few drops that fell yesterday remaining largely insufficient.
“This creates snow reserves in the Carlit massif which will supply Lake
Bouillouses
and then the Vinça dam in the spring,” notes Jacques Alvarez.
“The snow will melt and gradually feed the dams with a continuous start.
It’s even better than heavy rain which would wash into the sea too quickly.”