I am doing a hut to hut hike in Ticino in the second week in July and see that the webcams still show quite a lot of snow. Does anyone know where to find information on walking / mountain conditions? I need to decide whether to take crampons and axe. Thanks!

Best bet is to ask the hut wardens in the huts you are staying in. Best bet is to tell them where you intend to come from and go to, different paths may have different conditions.
How high are you going to be? Current weekend experience puts the snowline at around 2,200m in the northern edge of the Alps.

Thanks for the suggestion. We are going to be up to around 2500 for most of the walk, and up to 2800 if we do a trekking peak that we like the look of.

Right now I'm in Refugio Margaroli at 2194m and it just stopped snowing outside. I've been hiking and climbing in the Leopontine Alps for a little more than a week now, and the snow line is between 2000 and 2500m, depending on the terrain - that is, I encountered snow as low as 2000m in Valluna di Solcio, which a well shaded valley south of Cistella, above 2500m there is snow everywhere.

Usually day time temperatures have been well above freezing in this part of the Alps, even above 3000m, in which case crampons are not really necessary. However, if you catch a cold day, or start real early, the snow will be hard and crampons are indispensible. Today I started at 6.15 at 2500m, on a well used trail, but when I went off trail some 15 minutes later I had to put on my crampons. Early in the morning it was sunny, but I went well above 3000m, where it was cold, and the snow stayed hard for several hours. Ideal conditions for ascending on crampons. Shortly past 10, and around 3000m, the snow was soft enough to do without. The softer snow made for really nice conditions for descending, but it would be tiresome to go up. And by 1 o'clock, when I was around 2300m, it started snowing...