In France, half of all ski slopes are currently closed. It concerns many thousands of slopes spread across the country. The fear is that tourists will cancel their reservations en masse.
“Temperatures are relatively high and therefore there is little or no snow,” says Laurent Reynaud of Domaines Skiables, the trade association of French ski companies.
In the southern Alps and at high altitudes, the situation is still fair to good. But in many other places there is no snowflake to be seen. In the Vosges, in northeastern France, and in the Jura, near the border with Switzerland, even less than one in four slopes is open.
“In mid-December it was still really cold and there was enough snow. So the start of the winter season was good”, says Reynaud. “But at the end of last week the temperatures changed. It got warmer and there was a lot of rain.”
This situation is expected to continue for several days. Depending on the weather developments and subsequent snowfall, it will be decided per ski resort whether and when tourists are welcome again.
artificial snow
It is not the first time that the French mountains have to deal with snow shortages. Due to global warming, the lower-lying areas in particular are increasingly faced with green slopes. Artificial snow is less and less a remedy: it costs a lot of water and energy and that is undesirable for many, given the climate developments.
“Since 2015, a new heat record has been broken with us almost every year,” the meteorological institute for the French Alps wrote on its own Facebook page last weekend. It listed the figures for the ski areas up to an altitude of 1200 to 1400 metres. ,,Of the last 10 winters, only two have had a nice layer of snow. One winter there was enough snow, in the other seven winters there was no or very little snow.”
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