We could definitely need some snow right now

[Tender Branson]

... and by "snow" I mean 1-2 feet of it.

The skiing season is scheduled to start in 1 or 2 weeks and the landscape here still looks like in September or October. Yesterday it briefly had 10-15°C.

There's some snow on the mountains but not enough yet. At least there's clear skies now and temps are down to freezing levels during the night and early morning hours, but they are way too high during the day for the snow cannons.

I wish it would snow here like in Buffalo ...

[Tender Branson]

Still 10°C today ...

And the Ski areas are moaning already, because they already wanted to open last weekend.

The year 2014 will be the warmest in Austria since measuring began 250 years ago.

The November 2014 was 4°C warmer than the longtime records.

(not that I mind this warm weather, but it's not so good for the tourism-intensive ski areas).

[Tender Branson]

Today at 2pm (abnormal, no snow, but warm & nice weather):



Last year at the same time (normal, a lot of snow that then got eaten away during Christmas when it had 20°C, the highest temp ever measured so far in a December):

[Tender Branson]

I'd be utterly thrilled to send you whatever snow we get here, but I somehow think that won't work.

It would be great if we could get 2 feet on the ground and some 3-5 feet on the mountains.

[Tender Branson]

Still no snow.

Today, it has 15-20°C (= 59-68°F) in and around Vienna and 15°C in Salzburg !

The Vienna-area (the orange area east of Munich) today is as hot as Southern Spain or North Africa or the US-sunbelt:

[Tender Branson]

Chicago has about the same temperature as Moscow? And Houston about the same as Paris? God, America is cold.

Global warming at its finest.

That's no joke.

It's happening:

* The temperature in November or for most of the fall was 4°C hotter than the long term average.
* My mum picked parsley out of her elevated gardening bed a few days ago. That has never happened so far and she's 65 now.
* It's way too wet for this time of the year.
* The birds are still here and not in Africa, as usual.
* 40 measuring stations accross Austria did not report any freezing temps this fall for the first time ever.

[Tender Branson]

Poor boy, no snow at Christmas.  I'm sure that the millions of residents of Bangladesh whose lands will be inundated by rising seas would feel sorry for you if they knew you had no snow.  I reckon that those in western Africa watching their relatives shrivel fade away from the hemorrhagic disease brought on by ebola would wish you snow also.  No doubt the North Koreans with their 900-calorie-per-day diet will also feel sorry for you and wish you to have some of the snow that is causing their frostbites this Christmas season.  The Kurds and Syrians, at least those who can still walk and talk, would wish for you a white Christmas as well.  

Yours is truly a sad story.  We wish you prosperity and peace, and our thoughts and prayers are with you.

I'm well aware of all these problems, but that doesn't make my comments about global warming here less relevant.

After all, this is mostly a 1st World Forum, discussing 1st World problems ...

[Tender Branson]

Poor boy, no snow at Christmas.  I'm sure that the millions of residents of Bangladesh whose lands will be inundated by rising seas would feel sorry for you if they knew you had no snow.  I reckon that those in western Africa watching their relatives shrivel fade away from the hemorrhagic disease brought on by ebola would wish you snow also.  No doubt the North Koreans with their 900-calorie-per-day diet will also feel sorry for you and wish you to have some of the snow that is causing their frostbites this Christmas season.  The Kurds and Syrians, at least those who can still walk and talk, would wish for you a white Christmas as well. 

Yours is truly a sad story.  We wish you prosperity and peace, and our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Right and your incredibly heroic posts on an internet forum are exactly what they need.

You know who appreciates your attitude? Literally no one. Not a single person enduring suffering in the third world. And certainly not the hotels, restaurants, ski resorts, and countless other businesses that depend on tourism in Eastern Europe. People on this forum can hem and haw about businesses and whatnot, but the single mom working two jobs works those two jobs at a business.

So before you try to get your overly self-righteous, "Holier-than-tho" rocks off with this sanctimonious post your computer, consider the lives affected by something like snowfall. Fix your attitude.

You are of course correct, but the hotels and ski areas "can deal with it".

Also, please do not classify us as "Eastern Europe" in the future. "Eastern Europe" is the area that was beyond the wall/curtain then. We are "Central Europe".