On 4 August we wrote down a figure that defined the whole summer: the freezing level will not drop below 3,950 metres once in the coming 14 days. Two weeks later the exact opposite has happened, and it is worth working through the new situation soberly rather than celebrating it.
Because the turn is real. It just does not deliver what most people expect.
The freezing level, day by day
Show the figures as a table
| Entry | Value |
|---|---|
| 20 Aug | 3,780 m |
| 21 Aug | 3,360 m |
| 22 Aug | 3,200 m |
| 23 Aug | 3,660 m |
| 24 Aug | 3,860 m |
| 25 Aug | 3,710 m |
| 26 Aug | 4,020 m |
| 27 Aug | 4,060 m |
| 28 Aug | 3,710 m |
| 29 Aug | 3,030 m |
| 30 Aug | 2,790 m |
| 31 Aug | 3,520 m |
| 1 Sep | 2,920 m |
| 2 Sep | 2,490 m |
| 3 Sep | 2,470 m |
Averaged over the fifteen days, the freezing level sits at 3,372 metres. On 4 August, across the same span, it never fell below 3,950. That is not a nuance, that is a different summer.
The figure that matters is the night
If you want to know whether a glacier ski area can reopen, you do not look at fresh snow. You look at the nights.
The reason is in the statements of the three lift companies that stopped this summer. On 31 July Zermatt cited “sustained high temperatures, missing overnight cooling, repeated thunderstorms”. On 15 August the Stelvio cited “the missing overnight cooling and the failure of the snowpack to refreeze”. Both times the same thing sits at the centre: a piste on firn only holds if it freezes through again at night. Without that it softens during the day, does not set again overnight, and at some point it can no longer be groomed.
That is exactly what is changing now:
| Location | Frosty nights | Coldest night | Mean freezing level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zermatt, Theodul glacier (3,500 m) | 9 of 15 | −7.4 °C | 3,372 m |
| Saas-Fee, Fee glacier (3,400 m) | 9 of 15 | −6.1 °C | 3,385 m |
| Jungfraujoch (3,571 m) | 10 of 15 | −8.0 °C | 3,266 m |
| Stelvio, Gentili (3,200 m) | 5 of 15 | −2.9 °C | 3,389 m |
On the Theodul glacier there are seven consecutive frosty nights, from 28 August to 3 September. That is not one cold night, that is a week of refreezing in a row. And the Stelvio stands out, but not in a good way: at 3,200 metres its terrain is the lowest, and the frost reaches it on only five nights and never below minus three degrees.
What is missing is the snow
This is where it gets unromantic.
Half a centimetre. Over two weeks. On the glacier that is being written about most this week.
This is where the line “it might snow in Zermatt” and reality part company. It will snow, but not in any measurable quantity. What arrives is cold, not snow.
What that means for Zermatt, and what it does not
Zermatt stopped summer skiing on 31 July and wrote that the situation would be reassessed daily. That is not the end of a season, that is a suspension. Since 15 August, when the Stelvio stopped too, no area in the Alps has been running summer skiing for the first time.
What the turn delivers:
- Refreezing. Precisely the ingredient whose absence Zermatt itself named as a reason is coming back, and for a week without a break.
- Days in frost. On seven of fifteen days the terrain stays below the freezing level, so it does not thaw in the first place.
What it does not deliver:
- Snow depth. What the summer melted away does not return with half a centimetre. Frost hardens the surface that is there. It does not replace a layer.
- A promise. We do not know at what values Zermatt Bergbahnen would reopen, and we are not pretending otherwise. That is an operational decision, in which piste width, crevasse conditions, staffing and demand count as much as the thermometer.
So the honest summary is this: the condition that was missing in July is back from the end of August. Whether it is enough is not decided by the weather alone. If you want to know for certain, look at the Zermatt resort page and at the lift company’s own site; we keep the status there up to date as soon as anything changes.
When this stops being a forecast
The same warning as last time, and this time it is particularly apt.
The first seven to eight days are reliable. After that it is a trend, not a prediction. How quickly it tips over is shown by the sixteenth day, which we have left out of every figure above: for 4 September the model reports a freezing level of 4,180 metres and, at the same time, a minimum temperature of minus 7.6 degrees at 3,500 metres. Together those two are physically impossible.
The reason is technical. The freezing level is a field of the model grid; the temperature is scaled down to the altitude we specified. At the edge of the forecast range the two paths drift apart. So we leave that day out rather than passing it on in silence.
Every figure in this article refers to 20 August to 3 September.
Read on: Zermatt stops summer skiing · Saas-Fee stops summer skiing · The Stelvio is the last to stop · Where you can ski in August 2026
Sources and method
- Model data: Open-Meteo, which combines the models of MeteoSwiss and the German weather service. Retrieved on 20 August 2026. The query is in the project as a script (
scripts/wetterausblick.mjs) and can be repeated at any time. - Altitude: for each location the terrain altitude was fixed (Zermatt 3,500 m, Saas-Fee 3,400 m, Stelvio 3,200 m, Jungfraujoch 3,571 m). Without that, the model uses the altitude of its grid point, which in high mountains is regularly several hundred metres out.
- Freezing level: hourly model values, the lowest of each day. That is the moment when snow rather than rain is most likely up high.
- Fresh snow: the model’s daily total, not a measured snow depth. Models tend to overestimate fresh snow in high mountains rather than underestimate it, which makes the statement “almost no snow” stronger, not weaker.
- Statements by the lift companies: announcements by Zermatt Bergbahnen of 31 July 2026, Saastal Bergbahnen of 10 August 2026 and S.I.F.A.S. of 15 August 2026.
