Recent heavy rain in the Highlands has fallen as snow on high ground meaning Scotland’s most popular ski area – CairnGorm Mountain – has opened for limited skiing and boarding this weekend.

So far Cairngorm is the only one of the country’s five ski centres to open for the 2009–10 season but it’s still a promisingly early start. Last winter The Lecht opened for Halloween and intermittently through November.

Imaginative travellers wanting to go to an alternative destination for a skiing trip have been advised to visit Japan.

The Japan Ski Experience suggested the country as an ideal location for people to hit the slopes because it has the highest number of resorts in the world — many of which are world class yet largely unknown to tourists.

Lindsay Colbert, who works at the company, believes that visitors want to go to the country to experience the combination of culture and skiing.

Many of the world’s major resorts in at least 10 countries are opening for 2009–10 season this weekend. In Europe, the ski season begins in Andorra with Grandvalira opening a fortnight early after heavy snowfall in the Pyrenees.

In the French Alps, Europe’s highest major resort, Val Thorens is the second resort to open in France, joining Tignes which has been open for nearly two months already. In Austria, Obergurgl is opening and in Switzerland, Andermatt, Davos, Klosters, Flims and Laax join Engelberg, Zermatt, Verbier, Les Diablerets and Saas Fee which are already open.

In Italy, Livigno is opening early and is running its lifts free of charge this week with no lift pass required. More resorts are opening in Finland, Norway and Sweden joining the 20 or so already open in Scandinavia.

After more than two feet of snow fell on the slopes of Colorado in recent days, the first of the famous ski state’s larger international destination ski resorts will begin opening today.

Copper Mountain and Keystone will join three small areas that have already been open for several weeks, Arapahoe Basin, Loveland and Wolf Creek.

Keystone Resort announced it will open earlier than planned, today November 5th, thanks to fresh snow on the mountain and a spate of cold temperatures that provided ideal conditions for Keystone’s talented snowmaking team.

Winter has arrived in Hemsedal, Norway, where after days of sub-zero temperatures — great conditions for snowmaking — Hemsedal Ski Centre has announced it will open on Saturday the 7th of November!

“When we open, we open for real,” said resort manager Trond H. Østby. “Hemsedal has had lots of early snowfall, and together with optimal conditions for snowmaking we now have enough snow in Hemsedalsløypa to open the first weekend in November.”

Kitzbuhel in Austria is the highest profile ski resort yet to open (very) early for winter 2009–10 as the ski season catches everyone by surprise by starting two months ahead of schedule!

Cold weather across much of the northern hemisphere, bringing with it heavy snow in some cases, or simply low enough temperatures for the snow guns to operate long enough to build up a good base for the ski runs has allowed over a dozen resorts to open early in Canada, the US, Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland as well as Scandinavian countries.

Snow has also been reported in the Indian Himalayas, the Japan Alps and the Spanish Pyrenees, where Formigal and Baqueira Beret both reported six inches of pre-season snow in the past few days.

Heavy snow has been reported falling across Europe’s already-open glacier ski areas in France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria and there has also been up to 10cm (4 inches) of fresh snow down at resort level in famous ski areas like Obergurgl in Austria and Klosters in Switzerland which are not due to open until next month.

There have been details of falls of up to a metre (over three feet) at Hintertux in Austria — the year-round ski area which first reported huge snowfalls in the same second-week of October lst year, which proved to be the start of nearly three months of snowfall, setting the Alps up for a great snow season last winter. It looks like history is repeating itself.

Heavy snow and cold temperatures has led to resorts in Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the US to open earlier than expected – in some cases their earliest opening for 40 years.

Big name resorts to open this weekend include Sunday River and Mammoth in the US, Schladming in Austria, Ruka in Finland and Funasdalen in Sweden.

It’s the earliest ever opening for Schladming and the resort may close again before its planned opening, still 6 weeks away, if temperatures rise dramatically.