More mild weather forecast
Chamonix's streets are desperately bare. There's no snow, hardly any ice and on Tuesday morning the temperature was 5 degrees. And with all that rain up to 2000m – what's going on??? Disturbingly, it's a similar story in many resorts across the Alps at the moment.
According to climatologist Denis Debray, the exceptionally mild start to the winter is a continuation of the weather we experienced in autumn; an autumn which scientists rate as the hottest in 50years. It's worth noting that over the last 10 years autumns have been generally mild and December has also been warming up. Mr Debray revealed that a temperature increase of 1 degree in the lowlands and 2 degrees in the mountains has been observed. In the mountains the consequences of mild weather are particularly evident.
Whilst Debray accepts that this meteorological situation is due in large part to global warming, he reminds us that this tendency toward warmer weather does not prevent normal variations in the weather and we will undoubtedly experience periods of abnormal warmth but also severe cold. Future alpine winters are likely to be snowy at high altitude and rainy in the valley, which for skiers isn't all bad news!
