SNOW PATROL

If you’re heading for the Alps or Pyrenees this weekend, you are in for a treat. Ski conditions are nothing short of superb. Snowfall is uniformly higher than average and in most resorts the sun should shine all week from a cloudless sky, with temperatures set to be unseasonably warm.

FRANCE

A TImELY top-up of up to 35cm hit resorts such as Val d’Isere and Alpe d’Huez last weekend as the staggered French school holidays got under way. Now it’s the turn of children from Lyon and Grenoble, so the slopes will be busy.

ITALY

AFTER 10-25cm of snow at the beginning of the week, glorious sunshine has returned. Great skiing to be had on hard-packed pistes in resorts across the country from Cervinia to Sauze d’Oulx, Corvara and Courmayeur.

AUSTRIA

CRAzY amounts of snow curtailed January skiing as avalanches blocked access roads, but now holidaymakers are reaping the benefits as the sunshine returns.

St Anton has a metre in the village and a mighty 360cm on the Valluga. Blue skies and warm weather everywhere, with the freezing point creeping up towards 3,000m.

PYRENEES

ANDORRAN resorts are halfburied in 160cm of snow and there’s more than two metres at the top of the lifts. It’s a similar happy story in the Spanish resort of Baqueira Beret.

SWITZERLAND

zERmATT and Verbier are skiing at their best — plenty of snow cover and clear blue skies. After a new snowfall last monday, it really doesn’t get much better than this.

NORTH AMERICA

BOTH the United States and Canada are enjoying great skiing conditions, but don’t expect too much in the way of a suntan — and wrap up warm.

Breckenridge, for example, is in for a snowy week with a high of -5c and the thermometer dropping as low as -20c.

Whistler is marginally warmer with sunny spells giving way to more snow as the week progresses.