Tony Heller tells us Scottish snow is plentiful
Anybody who lives in northern parts of the UK knows that we generally get less snow than we used to. Of course it varies. In some winters we get very little. In others we still get a lot. But the overall trend is measurably downwards over years.
We've never had much in the way of organised ski-ing facilities where I live in the north of England, although we do have a few dry slopes and I do own cross-country skis that get a very occasional outing.
However, in Scotland ski-ing has always been a popular activity and it has developed as part of a strong tourist industry. But over recent years the facilities and opportunities for ski-ing in Scotland have suffered from diminishing snow.
This article from Scottish newspaper The Herald outlines the situation about 5 years ago.
Over recent years snow has generally further diminished, and all 5 remaining ski centres have invested in snow making machines.
The UK Met Office warning and Tony Heller's denial
On 19 January 2024 Tony Heller tweeted on X (formerly Twitter) that Alex Hill of the UK Met Office had wrongly announced "the demise of ski-ing in Scotland" 15 years earlier.
To support his assertion Tony included a link to a a web page that claimed to show fully active ski-ing on natural snow at one of the 5 resorts on that same day.
The link did go to the chosen page, but what was shown there was not somebody ski-ing on natural snow at the resort on that day.
There hadn't been any snow there for at least a week, and the 10cm layer of snow was all machine made.
Snowing on machine made snow at The Lecht on 19 Jan 2024
Here is a screen shot for snow conditions at The Lecht on that date.
The issue here is the attempt to discredit what somebody else (Alex Hill in this case) has claimed with fake evidence.
Given the large number of people who liked the tweet by Tony Heller, many were taken in by this attempt to deceive.
How is snowfall actually going at Scottish ski resorts?
If you'd like to see historical or current snowfall information about Scottish ski resorts try this site.
The figures in the chart here show historical snowfall for The Lecht. I have never operated a ski resort myself, but I doubt a ski resort could be operated for a whole season with so little snow.
Thanks goodness for the snow guns!