“This is February with the least snowfall ever”

Meteorological spring begins on March 1. Although it will cool significantly towards the end of the week and snowflakes are expected to fall on the plains, not everything is clear in the low-lying ski areas: the snow should not stick, as the ground is not frozen. At the same time, red dust clouds from the Sahara reached Switzerland for the first time this year. According to experts, snow contaminated with it absorbs a higher amount of solar energy and melts faster.

Is the absence of snow on the mountains a new record? Christoph Marty (57), climatologist from the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Studies (SLF) in Davos GR, explains: «Absolutely a bad year for tourism. It’s been a very snowless winter and definitely the snowiest February we’ve ever had.”

There was less snow in 1990

The amount of snow is currently 70 to 80 percent below the normal level of the last few decades. Things look a little better in the Lower Valais, according to Marty, while the situation at Weissfluhjoch, above Davos, for example, where measurements have been made for 80 years, is particularly dramatic: “There are only 100 centimeters at 2,500 meters instead of the usual 180 centimeters of snow.”

Marty continues: “The winters of 1964 and 1990 had even less snow. For these values ​​to be broken, there must be almost no snowfall in Switzerland this winter.” Still: Based on the data, it can be determined that the amount of profit has decreased in recent years.

Don’t worry about the next few years

The current lack of snow is due to a lack of “repeated” extreme precipitation, as well as climate change, which is causing average temperatures to rise. Such a lack of precipitation occurs every 10 to 15 years. Marty: “It’s unlikely to get that bad again in the next few years.”

But temperatures are likely to continue to rise. For this reason, Marty states that high-altitude ski areas will bring the two sides together in the near future, but the situation of low-altitude ski areas will continue to be difficult.

Source :Blick