POSTED: April 6th 2011
InDepth
PyeongChang potentially the coldest of the 2018 winter Games bids
NIKKI WICKS / Sports Features Communications
LONDON, Apr 6: PyeongChang enjoyed the coldest temperatures in February among the bid cities for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Temperatures at the Alpensia Cluster, the area at the heart of PyeongChang bid, fell to as low as -12 during the same period proposed for the 2018 Games (9-25 Feb). The region also enjoyed a number of heavy snowfalls of up to 43cm.
By comparison, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen region, the alpine ski area proposed in Munich’s bid, reached temperatures as low as -11 for the same period whilst Annecy in France dropped to lows of around -6.
The IOC, who will meet in Durban in July to elect a host city for 2018, will undoubtedly be thinking back to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games where unseasonably warm and wet weather threatened the competition in final run-up. Cypress Mountain, the venue for snowboarding and freestyle skiing events, was closed to the public two weeks earlier than planned to protect the snow conditions.
The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) recently announced that 2010 was the warmest year since global temperature records began in 1850, a concern for any event organiser that depends so heavily on cold weather and snow.
According to statistics, last year ranked as the warmest year on record, together with 2005 and 1998, revealing that 2010 was 0.53C (0.95°F) warmer than the average for the period 1961-90.
More recently, unseasonal weather has plagued a number of countries around the world, including the recent heavy rains and flooding in Brisbane, Brazil and this week, Thailand.
Organisers for the 2018 bids can only cross their fingers and hope that, if successful come July, the weather in 2018 makes the headlines for all the right reasons.
*All temperatures and weather statistics are provided by the official, local weather authority for each country, as used by the WMO: Metro France (Annecy); Deutscher Wetterdienst (Munich); Korea Meteorological Administration (PyeongChang).
Keywords · PyeongChang 2018 · Munich 2018 · Annecy 2018 · temperatures
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