Ischgl kicks off season tomorrow

After one of the warmest Novembers on record, European ski runs are still green instead of white.

Just a handful of ski resorts are announcing openings this week.

So where is the snow? Well only ski resorts that have a significant number of snow canons are able to open this week, but even then many resorts have been unable to run their canons as it's simply not cold enough.

One of the few exceptions is Ischgl (1400m) in Austria, which has been running 300-500 of its 1000 snow canons 24-hours a day, costing hundreds of thousands of euros.

Ischgl opens tomorrow (Nov. 25) and the resort has announced that 24 lifts and 81 kilometres of piste will be up and running for the weekend.

The opening will be celebrated in traditional Ischgl style on Saturday (Nov. 26) with an open-air evening concert - this year featuring Swedish pop duo Roxette - which is expected to draw a crowd of 20,000.

Today Val Thorens (2300m) opened three slopes and is reporting 20cm/40cm of snow (artificial).

For a full list of ski resorts opening this Saturday, see our Where is the snow this week? report.