So Covid has stopped most of us skiing but though we all despair you may have actually been lucky if you had previously booked a ski holiday from the end of February and then had to cancel it…Lucky you may ask? Well little more than a month ago, at the end of January, most of the Alps had snow depths well above average for the time of year. How things have changed. Now, most alpine areas have depths well below average. The exceptions are the Dolomites, the southern Austrian and south-eastern Swiss Alps.

The culprit has been unusually warm weather. Thursday, 25th February, Chamonix broke its February record when it reached 20.1 Celsius. Thats sunbathing summer weather! The weather forecaster Meteo Alpes says the previous February high in the French resort was 19.6 in 2011. Global warming or Covid cooling!! Maybe some of us got off lightly without realising!!