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SNOW

Lack of snow puts visitors off Swiss ski resorts

Ski resorts in Switzerland have seen a big drop in visitors on the slopes so far this season due to the lack of snow, official figures show.

Lack of snow puts visitors off Swiss ski resorts
The absence of snowfall has particularly affected lower altitude resorts. Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
According to ski lift umbrella organization Seilbahnen Schweiz (SS), from the beginning of the season in November to the end of December on average 12.6 percent fewer people used cable cars, ski trains and lifts than in the same period the previous year. 
 
The situation was worst in the Bernese Oberland – comprising resorts including Grindelwald and Mürren – where 30.5 percent fewer visitors used ski mechanisms. 
 
The Vaud Alps and Fribourg Alps also fared badly, down 23.8 percent. 
 
The Valais – including high altitude resorts including Zermatt and Saas-Fee – did better than average, with only a 9.2 percent fall in visitors, as did Graubünden, with only a 3.9 percent drop.
 
Nevertheless, the ski lift industry is only four percent worse off than the previous year, due to good sales on season passes in November, when early snow meant many resorts opened exceptionally early, the organization said.
 
However that was followed by the driest December for 150 years, meaning fresh snowfall was practically non-existent across the country’s resorts. 
 
Resorts at higher altitude have suffered less, since low temperatures in December allowed them to use snow cannons to generate ‘artificial’ snow. 
 
But those at lower altitude have had to face “massive drops in income”, said the association.
 
Many have promoted other mountain activities instead, such as scooter and mountainbike hire, summer luge runs and ice skating on frozen lakes.
 
However snow began to fall in early January, leading the director of Seilbahnen Schweiz to say he is “optimistic” for the season. 
 
“The arrival of winter down to the lowlands in these last days has created the wintry atmosphere that we need and that, experience shows, stimulates the desire to practise winter sports. The main factor that will influence how the season turns out is what the weather will be like on the weekends,” he said.
 
The season is not unlike the 2015/16 season, when snow also came late to Swiss resorts, leading many to fear this could be a trend.
 
A study in September found that these days Swiss ski resorts experience on average nearly 40 fewer snow days a season than they did in the 1970s.
 
Speaking to Le Tribune de Genève ahead of an international summit on mountain tourism in Crans-Montana next week, the director of the Valais resort Bruno Huggler also said he was optimistic for the industry, despite the change in the climate. 
 
Some 70 percent of holidaymakers over the Christmas period don’t consider skiing their priority, he said, but come for the mountain air and the views.
 
But he admitted he was worried for the remaining 30 percent who “want to ski morning to night”. 
 
“We are risking losing that clientele if this lack of snow endures,” he said.
 

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WEATHER

VIDEO: Meet the rooftop snow clearers keeping Stockholm safe

Stockholm's snow-topped buildings may look charming, but heavy snowfall can be dangerous. An army of 'sweepers' take to the city's rooftops to clear them of snow in a carefully managed operation.

VIDEO: Meet the rooftop snow clearers keeping Stockholm safe
Rooftop snow cleaner Andrei Pilan clears buildings in Stockholm's picturesque old town. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

Teetering on the edge of a black tin roof ten metres (33 feet) above ground, Andrei Plian and Alex Lupu clear a thick white blanket of snow off a building in Stockholm’s historic Gamla Stan (Old Town), while their colleague on the street below keeps watch to warn pedestrians passing by.

While to many the job would be vertigo-inducing, for Plian and Lupu – two roofers by trade – it gives them a chance to admire the view.

“Being here on the roof and looking up at the sky, you feel that freedom,” Plian tells AFP, seemingly ignoring the biting subzero chill.

Secured with ropes, carabiners and a safety harness, he climbs the few remaining steps on a ladder attached to the roof and breaks the serene quiet of the sunny February morning with a clank as his shovel hits the tin roof.

Click on video below to watch:

The constant clearing of snow from the city’s roofs is first and foremost done for “the safety of the people”, but also to maintain the buildings, many of which are hundreds of years old.

“If there is too much snow on the roof it is too heavy for it so you have to take it off,” the 36-year-old says

A ten-year roofing veteran, he moves around fluidly and with confidence. Getting the job done quickly is key as more roofs are waiting, but safety remains a top priority.

“Every time you have to think about safety, it’s the number one rule. You don’t have room for a mistake here. If you make one mistake it could be your last,” Plian says.

In early February, another snow clearer was seriously injured while clearing a roof in the northern Swedish town of Umeå, with initial findings showing he wasn’t wearing his safety harness.

Under Swedish law, property owners are responsible for clearing snow and ice off their buildings if it threatens to fall and injure someone, but accidents are rare.

“As far as I can remember there has only been two deaths in the last 20-30 years or so,” Staffan Moberg, spokesman for the insurer industry group Svensk Försäkring, told AFP.

In one case in 2002, a 14-year-old died after being struck by a large block of ice that broke off a building on Stockholm’s main shopping street Drottninggatan.

Moberg added that they don’t keep statistics on incidents since they are rarely requested, and while accidents do happen on occasion, “the consequences are mostly not lethal and very seldom even severe”.

But after every fresh snowfall, signs immediately sprout up on sidewalks and facades warning passers-by of the risk of falling snow and ice, awaiting the arrival of the “snowploughs” in the sky.

While Plian and Lupu are busy at work on the roof above, Fredrik Ericsson is tasked with ensuring the safety of pedestrians down below.

Using a high-pitched whistle, he signals their comings and goings: when he blows his whistle once the shovelling stops to let people pass, and two whistles signals the all-clear to resume work.

Ericsson concedes that it can be a tricky task as people are often oblivious, sometimes wilfully, to the work going on.

“They don’t show that much respect, they just walk past, so I have to stop and yell at them,” he explains. “They don’t see the danger.”

By AFP’s Helene Dauschy

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