A popular Italian ski area has been left entirely snowless this winter, with residents and businesses blaming climate change for the resort’s unseasonable heat.
Mount Terminillo, despite sitting over 2km above sea level in Italy’s Apennine mountains, is a popular ski resort among Roman snowsports enthusiasts – but it has been forced into closure by spring-like temperatures.
The 12-degree highs this week have rendered Terminillo’s pistes snowless and its snow cannons shooting blanks – it’s simply too hot, Vincenzo Regnini, president of local ski lift firm ASM Rietti, said.
As a result, all of the resort’s ski lifts have been switched off, all its pistes have been closed, and with no skiers, its restaurants and bars lie empty.
Snow cannons like this one in Terminillo simply can't function at current temperatures
Reuters
The area’s winter sports season was due to run from January 21 to March 29, but a complete snow no-show has seen the entire thing cancelled.
Regnini was blunt in his analysis of Terminillo’s woes, saying: “A crucial detail is missing for a ski facility: snow.”
He has a point – the last time Mount Terminillo saw snow was back in December 2023, and a miserable two centimetres at that.
It’s not all bad news for Italy, with over a metre of snow forecasted for certain resorts in the Italian Alps over the coming week – but there will be precious little for the Apennines, and nothing at all for Mount Terminillo.
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Terminillo's pistes have been left entirely without snow after 'spring-like' high temperatures
Reuters
Locals have lamented the abject snowfall – one, Domenico Cenza, said: “We’ve never had a season like this – it’s tough”.
Another resident, Lola De Sanctis, found a silver lining – she said: “It feels like June – so what can we do? Let’s enjoy the sun.”
Rob Stewart, a representative from the Swiss resort of Crans Montana, said the reports from Terminillo “isn’t surprising, considering the milder weather recently”.
Stewart said low-altitude resorts “are relying heavily on artificial snow to build the base and this works as long as temperatures stay around or below freezing”.
Chairlifts in Terminillo won't be carrying any skiers, and have been closed until the end of the season in March.
Reuters
The higher-altitude Alps don’t suffer from the same issues, Stewart told MailOnline – but Italy will be wary nonetheless as it prepares to host the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
China exclusively used artificial snow during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, but Italy will have to hope its winter is cold enough for even the false frost to settle.
Only 197 of Italy’s 290 ski resorts were fully functional in 2021, and the country has experienced yearly revenue drops as temperatures have risen and glaciers have shrunk.
The snow shortages have seen more and more resorts – in Italy and Europe – turn to summer sports as alternative revenue streams; Terminillo’s website itself lists BMX and trekking above snowsports in its ‘what to do’ section.
