Haha - we were staying in La Grave but skiing in Les 2 Alpes. I assume they got a cheap deal on the hotel.

With so much snow in the northern Alps the tragedies begin to unfold. Sounds like they were skiing on a closed run so avoidable.

My only skiing holiday was in Italy  a place called Aprica in the central Southernish alps. I took a peep at their snow conditions and it said 40cm on the slopes. The imbalance between different Alpine areas is amazing. 

Avoriaz is always relatively snowy - I think statistically the snowiest in the Alps - but that was freakish. This year, enough to ski on but very dry by comparison.

Above about 1,300m it’s really precipitation amounts rather than temperature that make the difference. Places like Flaine, Avoriaz or Val Thorens have snow no matter what.

I've got an impressive photo for you all to come - I don't think I have ever seen such deep snow in Europe as this pic I'll post in a few moments. :-O

This implies a snow depth of 25 to 30 feet. Incredible. You can see the chimneys of one house here and that's all thats visible of those houses.

This is in Austria.

https://www.saalbach.com/en/live-info/livecams 

A worst case scenario might be slight thaw and rain making loading even more extreme.

https://www.saalbach.com/en/service/info/arrival 

Hopefully in that region they know enough not to use flat roofs. but ones with enough of a camber to cause the snow to slide off if the weight becomes too great. Even in the UK, after a snowstorm in January 1982 the (I believe flat) roof of Sophia Gardens Pavilion in Cardiff. which was used for concerts and the like, collapsed under the weight of an estimated four feet of snow.

The school I teach at will be on the annual ski trip there in a few weeks! 😮❄️

Another amazing one from Austria.

Wow.

That's not drift.That's plain Heavy Snowfall.

Is it real?

I want that here 

Google image search says that image is not recent.

This is the source I think
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/snowy-winter-to-lendine-alp-at-chiavenna-valley.html

Fake news?

Impressive eitherway.

https://twitter.com/severeweatherEU/status/1085241548177059840 

Yep - that is real. In fact that is not the deepest snow in Austria atm either. It's beyond imagination what they have got in the Tyrol region.

It is real but from 2014... and not Austria but from Italy

Back in Edinburgh 2010, I had about 15 inches of snow on mine. Snow is a great insulator as igloos show. 1950s British house roofs aren't brilliantly insulated. Thus the bottom layer of snow on the roof started to heat up, began to melt and blocked by the rest of the snow above it, found it's way through the tiles and gaps and into our ceiling 😞 Still, we claimed it as an insurance job, extreme weather

Another good one from Austria - this one comparing snow depths at 1,800metres  asl.

I live on a housing estate built in the 1950s. From about the 1970s onwards, when most of them had insulation installed in their attics, it's been noticeable how much longer snow lasts on their roofs compared to formerly.