(image credit: Valerii Tkachenko)
Kitzbühel has published data showing that its ski seasons have got progressively longer, on average, over the past two decades.
The famous resort in the Austrian Tirol opened for an average 1409 days back in the early 1990s but has been opening up to 155 days for snowsports in recent seasons – stretching the snow cover period by more than two weeks.
The longest season over the 24 year period the graph covers was 182 days in 2012-2013 – half the year.
Kitzbühel has endeavoured to open for skiing in autumn weekends earlier and earlier over the past decades and this coming winter says it plans to open on October 22nd, all being well, then stay open through to May 1st 2017 more than six months later.
Interestingly the shortest winter in the 24 year analysis was winter 2005-6 when the ski slopes were only open for 129 days, just over four months.
Coincidentally this was the same season that the OECD published a major report on climate change in the Alps and said snowsports at resorts like Kitzbühel could be under threat later this century due to its comparatively low altitude ski area from 800-2000m.
Ever since then Kitzbühel has used snowmaking know how at an altitude location likely to hold the snow to endeavour to open earlier and earlier each Autumn.