The hills were alive with late blooming flowers and the sound of confused, warm birds today as Europe's ski season prepared to open on green meadows.
A weekend of rain is forecast across much of the Alps, where early season World Cup ski races have already been cancelled in Austria, France and Switzerland for lack of snow. The unusually mild weather has put races in doubt until the middle of December.
Earlier this week, meteorologists in France declared this year's autumn to be the warmest since 1950, with average temperatures 2.9C higher than usual. Ornithologists in Switzerland have observed birds delaying their winter migration to take advantage of the pleasant temperatures and late-surviving flowers.
In the UK, ski operators have cut their prices for early season holidays. Today, a week-long, presumably non-skiing trip to Les Deux Alpes, a French resort currently basking in temperatures of 10C with zero snow at lower levels, was on offer at Crystal Ski Holidays for £89.
"Our staff are doing snow dances in the office every night," said Angus Kinloch, the managing director of Skiline, an online travel agency that offers holidays at around 7,000 chalets in Europe and the US. "Europe is looking pretty ropey at the moment".
Mr Kinloch said that the market for December holidays was "a little bit flat" as skiers waited for the first snows to come.
A promising flurry in the Alps in November has given way to a week of warm, wet weather that has washed away hopes for a good, cold start. But, like other ski operators, he said the conditions were not unusual for this time of year and fit a recent pattern for the European ski season to start, and finish, later than it has in the past.
"What is unfortunate is that it doesn't look like we're going to get the early December bookings," he said. "But we're definitely seeing a pattern in which the snow seems to be lasting until fairly late in the year, certanly until the last week of April."
Alan Morgan, the information manager at the Ski Club of Great Britain, which has 30,000 members, said the only skiing available in Europe this weekend would be on high glacial slopes in resorts such as Zermatt, Saas Fee in Switzerland and Val Thorens in France. But he likened the mild start to the season to the conditions in early December last year.
"This time of year is always a bit hit and miss with the weather," he said. "This is very similar to what happened last year. If you look at our recent history, over the last few years, it's just that things are shifting a little later, in all honesty. Things have just moved a little."
The cancellation of the start of the World Cup ski season in Europe has moved attention to events in America and Canada, where conditions at resorts in the Rockies are enjoying superb conditions. Earlier this week, 3ft (90cm) of snow fell in 48 hours at the Birds of Prey course in Beaver Creek, Colorado, which would have been able to re-stage the cancelled European events were it not for the lack of sponsors.
