SWITZERLAND: Lack of snow hits the fashionable Swiss ski resort of Verbier

While many Alpine ski resorts are postponing the start of their ski season and shipping in tonnes of artificial snow, Swiss ski station Verbier has just opened its first and only skiable slope to tourists. Just one kilometre of a total 200 kilometres of the resort has been covered by enough snowfall to be opened to skiers since the start of a particularly warm and dry winter. Autumn 2006 has been exceptionally warm and the ski industry had not prepared for what is considered to be the warmest winter in the last three centuries. Snowfalls have been lacking and only the highest ski resorts have enough snow to open up to tourists. But on Friday (December 8) in verbier some of the few skiers in the resort were putting a brave face on their disappointment. German tourist Herbert said the situation had been even worse when he recently went to Austria. Briton Dave joked: "It could have been worse, there could have been no snow, but I think there's going to be a good dump of snow tonight, we're certainly praying for that anyway. Maybe we'll have to take a long lunch time." Pierre-Yves Deleze, the public relations manager for Verbier tourism office, was another trying to be optimistic. "It's true this autumn has been very long and warm, so we're hoping that the ground has had enough time to freeze, for the coming layers of snow to be lasting," he said. According to experts at the World Meteorological Organisation, it is yet too early to determine whether the current warm winter is related to global warming or is just part of a cycle of nature. Very warm winters have already been recorded in the past, even though they were more than 200 years ago. World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) climate expert Omar Baddour said: "It's still too early to relate this current warming to the global climate change the planet is undergoing, given that even in the past, very warm autumns and winters have been recorded." TRAVEL TOURISM WINTER HOLIDAYS

ITN Source | December 9, 2006

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