John Stevens

johnholmes it was lovely! It’s part of the Milky Way, between Claviere and Sestriere

Well today was our last day in Cesana Torinese. Overnight there was about 25cm…a beauty of a powder day! What a day to end the week. Some of the best skiing I’ve had! And it looks like they’ve got another 50cm in the next week!! The season will end on a high!

Second day of skiing here in the middle of the Via Lattea. Nice skiing, but feels more like Easter than the middle of February!! And looks like it to!!

Sprites it certainly is today…but it’s the most that’s happened in the 18months we’ve been here… The Emiratis have been out playing in the ice like a snow day back home!! And then they go out hooning around in the flood water in their 4x4s donutting like teenagers! bbf26543-1c0a-43db-93ff-8ca133a8ce44.mov

So, out here in the middle of the desert in the UAE winter has properly arrived…. Flooding, hail stones the size of golf balls( which have knackered the back of my car), and shredded trees…literally birds dead on the ground where they’ve been knocked out of the sky by the hail…Wadi’s which are normally bone dry in full flood!!! Nice to see some weather though!! IMG_1360.mov IMG_2335.mov 25a1b2df-220f-497c-a16c-4228977ed6d7.mp4 IMG_2320.mov IMG_2312.mov IMG_1351.mov

@Methuselah by chemtrails I thought you meant emissions from power stations or, more likely here, oil refineries/ desalination plants… Those emissions here are very “snaky”…so perhaps “chemtrails” is a good description

@Methuselah shouldn’t be a chemtrail as the pic is looking straight out into the desert, and where we are there’s no industry to emit. I suspect it was contrails passing through a cloud layer…but there’s nothing under the cloud layer which is what piqued my interest

I’ve been out of the SE for 18 months now, but always keep up on the thread…. Saw this cloud formation on the way home tonight in Al Ain, UAE…. First thought it was a contrail mixing with the cloud, but actually doesn’t look like it is.. you might need to zoom in a little

skiing in Cesana Torinese/ Sestriere in just over three weeks…first time since March 2019…. Taking a small school group from the UAE The conditions improve

What a fantastic start to the season, long may it continue…I am hopeful that Cesana Torino in Italy will be perfect in February

Be interesting to see what @tight isobar is thinking here

The season is off with a bang!!! Let’s hope it can maintain it until the end of April looking forward to my first trip in five years in Feb, to Cesana Torinase….

Snow reported in La Tania and Val d’Isere in the last 24 hours!!!

Afternoon all, been looking at a trip to Cesana in the Milky Way next Feb, does anyone have any experience of that resort? I know it connects into the MW well, and therefore should be good. 1/2 term crowds will be the problem at that time I know, but my hands are tied from that pov

Thanks Paul…pretty much my thinking…. Personally I’ve been to Le Corbier at that time and been fine…but as you say very dicey Unfortunately my hands are tied as to when I can organise the trip…. So take the plunge I think

Quick question for you folks…am planning a school ski trip next season…unfortunately due to holiday dates here in the UAE (moved here 6 months ago from Surrey) my dates are tied to the week beginning 11th Dec2023…looking currently at Siestetre Italy and a hotel at 2000m… my head says that this should be ok…. Given the number of trips I’ve organised in the past at Easter, this will be the first at ye beginning of the season though!!! Any thoughts welcome

It all stopped in the Surrey Hills around 6pm, no more than 2cm…. Was good to see it today!! Although I’m certain there’s going to be a proper dumping here before we return to the UAE in 10 days time

Looks like we’re going to get some proper winter this week on our brief return to Blighty!! Had a first dose of some “weather” in Al Ain today, desert and a heavy downpour! When it stopped, it was just like a tape being turned off!! IMG_8973.MOV

Fingers crossed it all comes off and there’s Snowmegdon between Saturday PM and the 20th with a sudden rapid thaw and then reload from the 23rd just in time for a white Christmas…. Why? it’s a secret return to the U.K. to surprise friends and family for a week or so…snow would top it off! We love the desert, but coming home to snow can’t be beat!!

Or will it decide to stand it’s ground a little further south (south of the M4) and give the south a pasting???

Now that I’ve moved to the UAE the nearest skiing to here is Georgia, Armenia and Turkey. Does anyone know anything about the resort’s in these places….I know that they are significantly cheaper than the alps…and that they are also very high, with resort level being near to 2000m in some…

that comment reminds me of this

So guys and gals in the SE, life in our new home in Al Ain, UAE, is going well. Settling into our new teaching jobs and the new school year has been hectic but fun! Any way last Wednesday we had a half hour downpour, preceded by a brief sandstorm! At that point we had been here for two weeks…but my calculations it had been a further seven weeks before we left the UK that we had seen rain at our former home in the Surrey Hills!! I’ve been told that there is increased rainfall here in the UAE in recent years due to cloud seeding and also the planting of large swathes of trees in the newly developed coastal and inland areas…i know the cloud seeding science and expiration of trees is the main driver of weather here but also the large cyclonic Indian Ocean weather systems that develop as well. in any case…seeing rain, standing in it and smelling it was amazing! IMG_8238.MOV

It certainly is! It’s going to be a big challenge for us, but very exciting!

Well folks, we’ve swapped the hot SE summer for the hot UAE desert. A week into our permanent move to Al Ain and the weather here is completely predictable…at the moment! Although rain is never too be discounted I’ll still be watching the SE weather, especially the snow potential, from a distance. Anyway, a lovely sunset picture from the top of Jabel Hafeet, at 6:30pm this evening. Sun dipping into the desert haze