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WEATHER

French ski resorts forced to close due to lack of snow

Unusually warm temperatures over Christmas and New Year have led to melting snow - and French ski resorts in the Alps, Pyrenees and Jura mountains are being forced to close because of the lack of snow.

Published: 2 January 2023 15:00 CET
French ski resorts forced to close due to lack of snow
A stopped chairlift at Le Semnoz ski resort, near Annecy, as the resort had to close temporarily due to the lack of snow. (Photo by JEFF PACHOUD / AFP)

Many of France’s lower-altitude resorts were only able to keep their doors open for a few weeks before temperatures rose too high for snow to remain deep enough for winter sports. 

The period immediately after Christmas was the warmest since 1997 in France and much of the country experienced “exceptionally high” temperatures, averaging at least 7 to 8C above seasonal norms.

The Pyrenees

In the French Pyrenees, ten of the resorts 30 resorts have had to close their ski areas in recent days, and as of December 27th only a quarter of ski runs were open for skiing.

One such resort is Ax 3 Domaines, located in Ariège, which closed on Saturday after only being operational for three weeks this winter. It typically employs about 80 people.

Some skiers who had visited Ax 3 Domaines hit stones and rocks during their descents down the mountain, damaging their equipment, as a result of the lack of sufficient snow cover. 

According to Jean-Claude Lorenzon, who owns a ski rental shop at the station, Ax 3 Domaines will not be able to open again until more snow falls.

Two other resorts closed their ski areas just before Christmas – Mourtis, located in Haute-Garonne, which closed on December 22nd, and La Pierre Saint-Martin, located in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques, which closed on December 23rd.

As of January 2nd, forecasters expected temperatures to remain mild during the beginning of January, indicating that the closures could continue at least until the middle of the month.

The Vosges and Jura Mountains

Other skiable parts of France – like the Vosges and the Jura Mountains, have also been heavily impacted by warm temperatures, with less than a quarter of runs open for skiing.

In some places, like the Schlucht resort in the Vosges mountains, ski resort operators have been forced to adapt by opening the chairlift to hikers. “Usually, the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is the strongest of the season,” Laurent Vaxelaire, the manager of the resort told France Bleu. 

While some resorts have been able to keep certain runs open with artificial snow, the technique is costly and energy intensive, and temperatures have to be near freezing for the machines to work.

The Alps

The Alps have also been affected by rising temperatures, particularly those in the northern part of the range and sections below 2,000 metres. In Haute-Savoie, rain fell instead of snow, forcing the ski resort of Semnoz to close its doors completely during the Christmas holidays.

Another ski resort, Praz de Lyz Sommand experienced flooding after heavy rains just ahead of Christmas.

And at the resort Les Gets, part of the famous Portes de Soleil ski area, only had two runs open on January 2nd. 

According to projections Météo France, by 2050, the availability of snow cover in mid-mountain areas will be reduced to 10 to 40 percent current thickness due to the climate crisis.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Rising sea levels threaten Normandy’s historic D-Day beaches

As France prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings, erosion and rising sea levels are threatening to strip away what remains of the physical history of the Allied invasion of Europe

Published: 7 May 2024 14:47 CEST
Rising sea levels threaten Normandy's historic D-Day beaches

From Ouistreham (Calvados) to Ravenoville (Manche), the Normandy coastline is littered with relics of June 1944. The Normandy tourism office lists more than 90 official D-Day sites, including 44 museums, drawing millions of visitors every year.

But the sea from where liberation came is now threatening to reclaim its heritage: cliffs and dunes are subject to erosion, while marshes and reclaimed land are at risk of being submerged.

The landscapes today of the famed beaches are nothing like the ones codenamed Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword, that the Allied forces endured in 1944, an official for the Conservatoire du Littoral in Normandy told AFP. 

The Gold Beach marshes in Ver-sur-Mer, “will be transformed in 10 years or so,” he added, as sea water rises to reclaim land that had been drained in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Mayor of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont and director of the Utah Beach Museum Charles de Vallavieille told Ouest France that  “we don’t have the right to do anything” to stop the advance of the sea. “The law protects dykes but not dunes,” he said. “We can’t get any help even though it’s a problem that affects the whole coast – protect one place and the water will go elsewhere”.

Pedestrians walk past remains of the British Artificial harbour at “Gold Beach”. (Photo by Lou BENOIST / AFP)

Between the American and British sectors, the Bessin cliffs – where German artillery batteries pummelled the beaches from hard-to-reach areas such as Pointe du Hoc – have been slowly falling to wave impacts, sea salt, freezes and thaws in the decades since 200 American rangers overran the occupying soldiers there. 

In 2010, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which manages the site, spent $6million to protect it. It “secured the area, [and] consolidated 70 metres […] with reinforced concrete walls, micropiles to stabilise the soil and a complex network of sensors monitoring the subsoil for any significant movement”.

Coastal pathways in the area have been “set back 20 metres” to ensure public safety, the ABMC has said.

But with sea levels rising a few millimetres a year, inexorably and inevitably changing the face of the coastline, nature is reclaiming the beaches of Normandy, and their blood-stained human history will become a matter of historical interpretation, rather physical fact.

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