@davidof, Depends how far you go back. I remember back I think 2007 the snow was as bad as it is currently is this year across the alps, with images of green slopes everywhere. I remember as I cancelled plans to ski that year and went scuba diving instead.
So it's not as if this has never happened before...it does happen and has happened before.
Oh I can go back much further if you like but I doubt you have the patience. I remember 1975 when I was a kid the people in le Mont Dore complaining about the lack of snow.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
My first ski trip in '89 IIRC was to St Lary. Pretty much no snow, there was one run open, presumably so there was no lift pass refund. Thompson even laid on a free trip to Lourdes one day! (where it was 21C). It was early though, maybe even boxing day start.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
MorningGory wrote:
My first ski trip in '89 IIRC was to St Lary. Pretty much no snow, there was one run open, presumably so there was no lift pass refund. Thompson even laid on a free trip to Lourdes one day! (where it was 21C). It was early though, maybe even boxing day start.
Lermoos in 1989 - cows grazing on the ski slopes. They had snow at Zugspite glacier though. Nassfeld - really was a wet field that year.
At the same time I remember cross country ski runs in the fields just outside Munich - does it get cold enough to set the tracks at 600 meters these days?
2011 was dire if I recall? Lots of snow early in the December and then never snowed again - we were in Les Arcs at Easter and there was snow in 2000 bowl but nothing below that, except one narrow track down to 1800
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Well folks has been a great morning here, and as you can see snow is still on the Valley floor, and as you'll see more than enough for the dog sleds.
British Army Medical Corps now in the Valley for their competition week, had a chat with a few up at the Biathlon course and they were very chuffed with the snow conditions compared to what they have read in the medja, but even the French Media are now highlighting Serre and Puy St Vincent as the best accumulations in the French Alps.
Wim Thiery, a professor of climate science at the University of Brussels, said that “skiing in the Alps... is over"
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Story in the Telegraph that the hospitals in the Tyrol-region have seen a significant uptick in the number and severity of injuries so far this season which is being put down to poor conditions and overcrowding of the snow that is available.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@davidof, to be fair he said by the end of the century and that "as long as the climate warms." so a long time with a big caveat. May be I am being unduly optimistic (not denying there is a problem).
Also, the article talks of 1500m resort being “snow safe” which seems bonkers to me.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Layne wrote:
@davidof, to be fair he said by the end of the century and that "as long as the climate warms." so a long time with a big caveat.
I was trying to get into the doom and gloom meme with some very selective quoting.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@davidof,
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
if warming continues as everyone with any claim to expertise predicts, we're pretty well doomed all round, and the demise of skiing will be the least of our worries. The condemned man might as well eat a hearty breakfast.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@pam w,
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I'm sure I heard that with global warming the gulf stream would stop and we'd get the same weather as Canada and Norway etc - surely that means we can all ski at home then
I'm sure I heard that with global warming the gulf stream would stop and we'd get the same weather as Canada and Norway etc - surely that means we can all ski at home then
Doesn't Norway benefit from the gulf stream. It would be like Greenland otherwise.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I seem to recall that in my first full ski season, 2004-5, it snowed early in December before the lifts opened and then not again until the first or second week of January. Whereupon it dumped something like 130cm in 36 hours. So all is not lost...
We're saying in Mottaret this week, and most runs to resort are complete, if alternately slushy/icy depending on the time of day. But my wife says she was here as a child in the 80s, for February half term, and there was a walk across muddy grass from ski school meeting point to the lift. So things could be a lot worse! Artificial snow probably has a lot to do with it, to keep vital links open.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Boris wrote:
2011 was dire if I recall? Lots of snow early in the December and then never snowed again - we were in Les Arcs at Easter and there was snow in 2000 bowl but nothing below that, except one narrow track down to 1800
Was also in Les Arcs around that time in 2011, and remember having to take off skis and walk over the mud to take the Arpette chair. Also recall the narrow strip to get to 1800. It's not ideal this week, but nothing like that.
Also recall a couple of poor snow years at the end of the 80s, when I first started, including a piste at Kitzbuhel kept open by laying down significant amounts of straw to cover the bare stretches.
I've always felt when the states are having a good season, Europe isn't great, and vice versa.
I'm based in London, with family in Banff (Alberta), and we've concluded this is typically true.
Whether that has any basis in reality e.g. El Nina etc, I'm sure someone will tell me otherwise!
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
None of these memories of very poor snow cover, of course, have any bearing on the issue of climate change. It's all weather.
But they do serve to put this year's hysteria into context and make those of us who regularly warn about snow cover at Christmas feel smug.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
pam w wrote:
None of these memories of very poor snow cover, of course, have any bearing on the issue of climate change. It's all weather.
Incorrect, the reality is that is a combination of long term climate change and localised weather effects.
To say it is just weather is grossly ignorant.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@chrislondon, There has never been strong or reliable evidence linking El Nino and La Nina weather events in the Pacific to winter weather in Atlantic Europe. Our winters are controlled by low pressure systems in Central Russia and the North Atlantic. There is an Atlantic equivalent of El Nino/La Nina called the North Atlantic Oscillation (the NAO to its friends) which isn't as influential or as well understood, but seems to have a 2-3 year cycle and has the effect of tracking winter storms either north over the France or south over Italy. Seeing as the Pyrenees seemed to be getting the lion's share of the early snow this season we could be seeing a NAO cycle in play this year, linked with the general downwards trend in cold weather and snowfall.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@NoMapNoCompass, I don't for one moment believe @pam w, is implying climate change doesn't exist, just that for those people skiing early season you have to take your chance with the snow gods and deal with the weather you have there and then - not what it could be in 2100 or what it was in 1987.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Boris wrote:
@NoMapNoCompass, I don't for one moment believe @pam w, is implying climate change doesn't exist, just that for those people skiing early season you have to take your chance with the snow gods and deal with the weather you have there and then - not what it could be in 2100 or what it was in 1987.
Not unless you have a hot tub time machine in your ski lodge !
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@davidof, Michael Jackson's black
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Boris wrote:
@davidof, Michael Jackson's black
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Yes, but the long term trend is that summer and autumn skiing on glaciers is now becoming no longer possible, this has a knock on for winter. Long term rises in average temperature mean that any base falling in the late autumn, early winter will not last and so there is a delay in resorts having a good base to start the season. The winter season is contracting as a result, particularly for low resorts. Localised weather affects modulate this further as we have seen this year, but this is not weather alone as the localised weather trends affecting the alps are also being influenced by long term climate changes.
Yes. The "weather" is the short term change. Climate change is slow - and going in only one direction, despite the short term ups and downs of the weather. We have always had heat waves, and cold times and good and bad snow. And summer storms with force 11 winds. Climate change means we will have more of the same. I live right by the sea, which when big tides coincide with low atmospheric pressure and the right sort of wind, comes to within a couple of metres of my front door. A few inches, measures vertically. So I am more aware than most of the implications of global warming.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Richard_Sideways wrote:
@chrislondon, There has never been strong or reliable evidence linking El Nino and La Nina weather events in the Pacific to winter weather in Atlantic Europe. Our winters are controlled by low pressure systems in Central Russia and the North Atlantic. There is an Atlantic equivalent of El Nino/La Nina called the North Atlantic Oscillation (the NAO to its friends) which isn't as influential or as well understood, but seems to have a 2-3 year cycle and has the effect of tracking winter storms either north over the France or south over Italy. Seeing as the Pyrenees seemed to be getting the lion's share of the early snow this season we could be seeing a NAO cycle in play this year, linked with the general downwards trend in cold weather and snowfall.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
but I doubt you have the patience. I remember 1975 when I was a kid the people in le Mont Dore complaining about the lack of snow.
