Beijing 2022, the first snowless Winter Games closed

Once the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics have been archived, we look to the next edition of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games, also from a climatic point of view. The ceremony on Sunday 20 February 2022 sealed the first snowless edition in the history of the Winter Olympics and one wonders whether or not there will be snow in Milan and Cortina in the winter of 2026. Impossible to say today. However, it is clear that the winters in recent years in Northern Italy are gradually less cold and, often, even drier. The analysis of the last cold seasons carried out by 3Bmeteo provides a key to interpreting the evolution of Italian winters in the northern regions: it is less cold, it snows less, even fog is less frequent. A consolidated trend that has strengthened especially since the 2000s (against the coldest and snowy winters on average up to the 80s), but which has found a further acceleration in the last decade, particularly from 2012 onwards. Of course there is no lack of cold and snowy brackets, but they are in a clear minority compared to dry phases and, above all, above the thermal average. Cold waves are statistically less frequent and of shorter duration than the periods with temperatures above the average already only compared to the thirty years 1971-2000. MILAN – CORTINA, THE DATA – Analyzing the last winters in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, it immediately catches the eye that, in both cases, the overall balance is always above average temperatures, both in terms of minimum and maximum temperatures, compared to the thirty years 1971-2000, or in the best of cases we are approaching the average; however, if the average temperatures on a monthly basis in Milan are sometimes even 3-5 ° C higher than the norm, in Cortina the anomaly is even greater up to a waste of over 6-8 ° C (on a monthly basis). For example, the months of January and February 2020 are noteworthy, when Cortina’s average monthly maximum was around 6 ° C compared to an average that should be -2 ° C. In the same period, the maximums in Milan were on average 10 ° C in January and 13 ° C in February compared to an average maximum of 6 and 9 ° C respectively (again referring to the thirty years 71-2000). Among the major anomalies it is also noted how in the last 4 winters the monthly average of the minimum in Milan has always been positive, generally between 1 ° C and 3 ° C, with even peaks of 5 ° C in December 2019 and February 2020. The average of the thirty-year period 71-2000 is instead 0 ° C in December and February, -1 ° C in January. Analyzing the rainfall, despite a drier trend, there are also phases where the rainy days were above average. , in particular those of 2012-2013, 2017-2018 and 2020-2021. The frequency increases in the case of Cortina, consistently with the fact that often the currents from the North allow weak so-called ‘breakthrough’ snowfalls, from Austria to Ampezzano. Weak indeed, and therefore the overall accumulation is often modest. This does not also imply important snow phases, but they are less frequent (it being understood that statistically for the Alps the greatest rainfall is recorded in autumn and spring, while in winter they are more occasional and less intense). It also snows less in Milan than in the winters before the 90s: in the last 4 seasons there have been at most two snowfalls per winter in the Milanese capital, with generally modest accumulations. WHY IT HAPPENS – In the specific case of Northern Italy we find two main contributions: global warming for which the air masses arriving from the Atlantic and subtropical latitudes (Canary-Africa) are on average warmer than before 2000. In secondly, the positioning of low and high pressures, often but not always, penalized the rainfall in Northern Italy in the last winter seasons. In particular, the interference of the anticyclones on the Mediterranean, and on Western Europe, extremely hindered the entry of rainy Atlantic disturbances on our northern regions, resulting in stable and relatively mild weather for the period. In the last decade, we have often witnessed the presence of the so-called ‘blocking anticyclones’ positioned between Spain, France and at times also over Great Britain, for which dry currents from the north have blown on our northern regions in not only dry weather, but also mild due to the foehn effect. There have been more dynamic, rainy and, if only partially, cold winters: in particular those of 2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2017-2018 and 2020-2021, but these are gradually more sporadic brackets in a context warmer on average. There have been winters where true cold has reached Northern Italy more easily, in particular 2012-2013, 2017-2018 and 2020-2021, however the thermal anomalies towards the cold are less significant than the above average thermal anomalies : that is to say that above average temperatures are more frequent and often much more deviating from the norm than when temperatures are below average.