There are two essential elements to organize a Winter Olympics: snow and ice. However, Old Man Winter can be temperamental, and mild temperatures and lack of snow have threatened to derail the Winter Games on several occasions, particularly before the advent of temperature-controlled arenas and artificial snow.
Weather challenges at the Winter Olympics have a history almost as old as the sporting spectacle itself.
1928 St. Moritz Olympics
On Valentine’s Day in 1928, a freak burst of summer heat that could have melted a box of chocolates – not to mention snow – hit St. Moritz, Switzerland, and wreaked havoc with the second Games of winter.
Temperatures hovered near freezing when the 50-kilometre cross-country race started at 8 a.m., but within an hour a warm wind known as the föhn blown from the Alps. Strong southerly winds sent temperatures soaring to 77 degrees in the sun. the föhn, which had never come so early in the winter, turned the cross-country event into a slippery race and one of the slowest races in skiing history. The conditions forced more than a quarter of the skiers to retire and Sweden’s Per Erik Hedlund won in a time more than an hour slower than the 1924 gold medalist.
Meanwhile, on the outer speed skating ring, the ice was melting under the blades of the 10,000 meter skaters. Each heat grew slower and slower as puddles formed on the melting ice until organizers canceled the race, with American Irving Jaffee leading.
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1932 Lake Placid Olympics
An athlete soars over barely snow-covered terrain during a ski jumping competition at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics.
Universal History Archive/Universal Pictures Group via Getty Images
Jaffee finally achieved his Olympic dream by winning two gold medals at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, which had its own weather problems. Locals believed that a heavy snowfall in early November 1931 was a good omen. It turned out to be a tease. The Adirondack winter brought an unprecedented lack of snow in December and January, and temperatures even exceeded 50 degrees on some days. For the first time in its 137-year history, the New York State Weather Bureau reported that the Hudson River had not frozen.
Unusual wintry weather hampered some Olympians’ training routines, but two snowstorms that hit ahead of the opening ceremony gave organizers some breathing room. No event had to be canceled, although the mild temperatures caused some alterations. Bad ice caused four hockey games to be moved from the outdoor rink to the indoor arena in Lake Placid. Competing ski jumpers on a 47-degree day soared over the arid countryside and splashed in a puddle-laden sheet of snow that had been trucked in from higher altitudes. The heat also forced an adjustment to the 50-kilometre cross-country course, which in places was just a strip of snow.
As wishes for a blizzard in the Adirondacks were finally granted, the blizzard hit during the nightly closing ceremony and left fans looking like “snow-white ghosts in the eerie twilight,” according to the official report of the third Winter Olympics.
READ MORE: History of the Winter Olympics
1960 Squaw Valley Olympics
The Winter Olympics returned to the United States in 1960 after representatives from Squaw Valley, California, snowed the International Olympic Committee with the false claim that 35 feet of snow fell each winter in the outpost away from the Sierra Nevada. With the Games just weeks away, however, winter had brought California sunshine, but no snow.
Walt Disney, who served as pageantry chairman for the 1960 Winter Olympics and producer of the opening ceremony, was among organizers concerned that Squaw Valley was anything but snow white. After hiring 10 native Paiutes to perform a ceremonial snow dance, clouds appeared, but brought only rain.
Disney then turned to meteorologist Irving Krick, who began his meteorological career providing long-range forecasts to movie studios establishing location schedules before joining the team of forecasters who advised Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D.Eisenhower to delay D-Day from the June target date. 5, 1944.
Krick boasted of not only being able to predict the weather, but also of changing it by seeding clouds with silver iodine. When clouds appeared around Squaw Valley less than six weeks before the start of the Games, Krick turned on 20 cloud seeding generators. Whether it was coincidence or not, a few days later three feet of snow fell on Squaw Valley with seven feet in the mountains.
Snow remained a concern on the morning of the Opening Ceremony, but this time too much. Squaw Valley awoke to a raging blizzard over the Sierra Nevadas that rumbled through traffic and delayed the arrival of Vice President Richard Nixon to open the Games. Near-zero visibility meant that Americans listening to the live broadcast would see nothing of the Disney production.
In a scene that could have been taken from a Disney fairy tale, however, the snow stopped and the sun broke through just as Greece’s flag bearer entered the Olympic Stadium to lead the parade of athletes. As soon as the ceremony was over, the snow resumed. The press dubbed the fortuitous moment the “Miracle of Squaw Valley”.
Innsbruck 1964 Olympic Games
Austrian soldiers carrying baskets of snow down the ski slopes in preparation for the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck.
Central Press/Getty Images
The snow was there again four years later in Innsbruck, Austria. When the ski resort that hosted the 1964 Winter Olympics suffered one of its longest snow droughts on record, organizers called in the Austrian military to save the Games.
A force of 2,500 troops lined the bobsleigh and luge courses with 20,000 blocks of ice they harvested from a nearby valley. In addition, troops hauled 88 million pounds of snow, in some cases basket by basket, to downhill ski slopes where soldiers and volunteers raced down the slopes with their hands and feet.
Temperatures remained mild throughout the Winter Games. While reporters joked that the Olympic flame was a fire hazard in drought conditions and swimmers in bathing suits waved to cross-country skiers training on narrow ribbons of snow, all events were completed. After seven weeks without snow, the flakes finally fell four hours after the closing ceremony, forcing out-of-town flights to be grounded.
Olympic Games in Vancouver, Sochi and Beijing
Trucks loaded with snow head up Cypress Mountain to cover the bare slopes of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
STEPHANIE LAMY/AFP via Getty Images
When organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics pledged to make the Games in Vancouver, Canada the “greenest on record”, they didn’t expect Mother Nature to deliver on her promise with spring-like temperatures. which brought blooming daffodils, torrential rain and no snow for almost two months before the opening ceremony.
The artificial snow cannons, which first appeared at the 1980 Winter Olympics, were powerless amid Vancouver’s hottest January and February on record. In order to organize the freestyle skiing and snowboarding competitions, organizers used a fleet of dump trucks and even helicopters to transport snow to locations as far away as 150 miles.
Even with modern snowmaking equipment, future Winter Olympics could see the weather challenges of the past repeated if global temperatures continue to rise and the Games continue to be awarded to subtropical cities – such as 2014 Sochi host, Russia – or have an arid winter climate similar to 2022 host Beijing, China.
