Methodology and sources

How often Europe's ski resorts had enough snow at Christmas and over the season — natural and with snowmaking, 1984–2014 — and what climate scenarios expect to 2060. Copernicus (C3S) snow model by region and height band.

What the pages show

• Snow data: the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) dataset “Mountain tourism meteorological and snow indicators”, version 1.0. Météo-France computed the snowpack with the Crocus snow model for every NUTS-3 region in Europe and every 100 m height band — once as natural snow, once with piste grooming and typical snowmaking. The model is driven by the UERRA reanalysis (past) and by EURO-CORDEX regional climate models (future).
• Snow means a snow depth of at least 30 cm (indicator “medium height”, threshold from the C3S variable description). Our check against daily snow depth at four German Weather Service (DWD) stations (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Oberstdorf, Feldberg, Schmücke) fits best at 30–50 cm.
• Snowy Christmas: at least 30 cm on at least 10 of the 14 days from 22 December to 4 January. We count the winters 1984/85 to 2013/14 (C3S files for the years 1985–2014; year N stands for winter N−1/N).
• Resort → region → height: operating ski areas with at least 10 km of downhill pistes (5 km in Germany, Czechia and Poland) from OpenSkiMap. The resort's point lies in a NUTS-3 region (2016 boundaries, as in the C3S data). “Mid-mountain” is halfway between the lowest and the highest piste, matched to the nearest height band C3S computes for that region; “bottom” and “top” likewise for the lowest and highest piste. If the nearest band is more than 150 m away we do not show it; if there is none for mid-mountain, the resort has no page.
• Season: days with at least 30 cm (or 5 cm) from 1 August to 31 July, averaged over 30 winters; “continuous snow cover” is the longest unbroken period with at least 30 cm (median start and end over the winters that had one).
• Scenarios: mean of the EURO-CORDEX models for 1986–2005 (reference) and for 2021–2040 and 2041–2060 under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Compare future values with the model reference, not with the reanalysis.

Limits

• The numbers describe a region and a height band, not individual pistes. Several resorts in the same region at the same height therefore share the same numbers.
• The reanalysis ends with the 2013/14 winter. Recent winters are missing.
• “With snowmaking” is the model's typical snowmaking; whether a resort really has that many snow guns is not in the data.
• Glaciers, north-facing slopes, wind and avalanches are not taken into account.
• In some regions the height bands end below the summits (for example in the Black Forest and the Low Tatras). Resorts without a matching mid-mountain band (25) and resorts in countries without NUTS-3 regions (Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ukraine) have no page.
• Lift-pass networks that cover many resorts in several regions (Dolomiti Superski, Ski amadé, Les Portes du Soleil) have no page of their own: one point and one height do not fit them — their member resorts do. Four ski areas recorded twice (same area under two names) are shown once.

Sources and licences