Is this the worst start to the season ever?

Getting really concerned about amount of snow in the Austrian Alps. I know the higher resorts are ok, but a lot of the lower ones are struggling and looking at the long range forecasts (I know they cannot be 100% accurate)there is no real snow forecast until well into January and the above average temperatures show no signs of abating.
Has this kind of weather pattern happened before? Last year there was virtually no snow in lower resorts until Xmas Eve.
I have only been skiing for about 7yrs up to now and this year and last year seem to stand out for lack of snow.
So, over to you long time skiers, is this a normal sort of pattern or are we really in the grip of global warming?

I've only been skiing since 2010 but for me at this time of year there is only one option - 'go high'.

We head off to Val d'Isere on saturday and I think the skiing will be ok. Not great for deep off piste but I wouldn't expect that until mid Jan onwards. See screen grab of the webcam at village level. Looks ok but then it is at 1,850m. Lots of skiing above 2500m.



We were in Zermatt this time last year and skiing was good there as well.

Global warming? Will only be truly definable in hindsight.

DougR wrote:Is this the worst start to the season ever?

In short, no. I've been skiing for ~30 years (obviously I started very young, and not in my mid-twenties... obviously... I wish) and two seasons stand out as the worst; 1988/89 and 1989/90 (I think - may be a year out). The latter (IIRC) saw virtually no snow fall in the French Alps until February and I remember walking across dry ground between patches of snow - on a "piste" - in Wengen in January.

The "ski season" used to start in January for many Alpine areas, until the tour operators saw the opportunity to start selling "winter wonderland Xmas ski holidays" (late '70s?).

Conditions in the French Alps are better than this time last year. For the lowest areas they may be just as challenging but there are currently good conditions at altitude (see my reports from Les Arcs this week) that are way better than last year.

DougR wrote:no real snow forecast until well into January and the above average temperatures show no signs of abating.

Whilst this is true, you are also correct to note that long-range forecasts are not reliable. Also remember that "above average" temperatures in December can still be cold!

DougR wrote:I have only been skiing for about 7yrs up to now and this year and last year seem to stand out for lack of snow.

Taking the past 7 years, you'd be correct - but the first 4 of those years were among the best European seasons in my skiing experience. 2012/13 (I think - may be a year out) broke all-time snowfall records across Switzerland and 2011/12 famously saw snow depth gauges 6 metre "deep" being buried in December (St.Anton).

DougR wrote:So, over to you long time skiers, is this a normal sort of pattern

Yep. There are good seasons, bad seasons, early ones, late ones and the odd few that never really get going. This year obviously won't be an early one but it still might be any of the others! 8)

DougR wrote:are we really in the grip of global warming?

Nope (unless it started 2 years ago...). 8)

There are a few years back in the 1980's that I can picture exactly.
Xmas 1985 - poor snow in Meribel valley but better in Courchevel
Xmas 1986 - Absolutely brilliant in Les Arcs
Xmas 1987 - Terrible in Les Arcs; chair lifts down from higher places
Xmas 1988 - great conditions
Xmas 1989 - OK, could ski back to 1650

These were all pretty much pre-snow cannons. Courchevel had a few but other resorts were only just getting them. With artificial snow more and more slopes could be covered and skiable as long as temperatures are low over night.
The most noticeable change that I have seen is in the Glaciers - the one I know Grande Motte above Tignes. Much smaller now than back in the 1980's. Tignes used to offer skiing 365 days of the year but that stopped a while ago and the glacier has a very limited summer opening schedule now. It is a poor shadow of it's former self.
Lower level resorts used to have a much shorter season before artificial snow. Whilst they would try to open for Xmas this wasn't guaranteed.
Early season skiing is always hit and miss and BB has made a good point about going high.
I have seen projections showing the jet stream moving south from beginning of january and this should herald snow - let's hope so.

So far it seems to be an exact repeat of last season't start only shifted two weeks forward. If the snow that had come a week before resorts started to open had come two weeks earlier last year opening day conditions would be the same. It was better on the first weekend, but this before snow didn't have time to melt yet, but this cold was very short lived. By now conditions are almost fully matched. It rained couple time lasts December two, it was raining on Christmas week and we had our lunch on a terrace. It's too mild, massive inversions too - cold in the valleys and balmy at altitude. Today's snow was really a dusting, will improve things for a day, but then more warm days are expected, people are talking now about January. Let's see, they say early winter is short winter, I hope so, and Easter is early this season too. We can get lucky then:)

The worst start to the season I can recall was in 1989/90, my first days skiing was on 15th January at Saas Fee.

Since then many resorts have invested heavily in snowmaking and snow management, they cannot afford to be snowless over Christmas and New Year as it's the most profitable part of the season. I think ski resorts are going to become increasingly reliant on artificial snow.

50 years ago the Swiss glaciers received 6 to 8 metres of snow per season, some of which lasted all summer. These days we are lucky if we get 1 to 2 metres, which often melts before the end of July. After the snow has melted the glacier ice starts melting. This summer (the 2nd warmest on record in the Alps) the Aletsch Glacier (the longest in the Alps) was losing ice at the rate of 8cm per day!

In 2008 the Swiss climatologist Christoph Marty carried out a shift detection analysis that "revealed a significant step-like decrease in snow days at the end of the 1980's with no clear trend since then. This abrupt change resulted in a loss of 20% to 60% of the total snow days. The stepwise increase of the mean winter temperature at the end of the 1980's and its close correlation with the snow day anomalies corroborate the sensitivity of the mid-latitude winter to the climate change induced temperature increase". http://www.slf.ch/info/mitarbeitende/marty/publications/Marty2008_RegimeShift.pdf

If there is another step-like decrease in the near future many resorts will be in serious trouble.

I have a Russian colleague who says that even in places like Moscow people cannot count on winter as they could 40-30 years ago, when snow would arrive by mid-November and stay till end of March. And it was cold. Bad for agriculture as they lose the best and absolutely free insulation which nature used to provide. Plus flu season almost never ends now as viruses don't normally like it when it's cold.

SwingBeep wrote:significant step-like decrease in snow days at the end of the 1980's with no clear trend since then.

Interesting about the "step change"; I've seen similar changes referenced in other climate-related studies - will dig them out when I have time but from what I recall they lend more support to the various "cycle" based climate theories.