[troutman]

Is Sochi too far south/too warm for Winter Olympics?

This is the forecast this week:

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/rukda0001

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...650924750.html

Sochi is warmer than past Winter Olympic host cities—the seaside park will feature palm and magnolia trees—but organizers dismiss concerns about having enough snow for the games.

To be safe, Russian officials have been packing reserve snow into underground storage facilities for over a year. They expect to have 250,000 cubic meters saved up by the games—an emergency backup supply in case the 430 snow machines that are being installed don't suffice.

"For the competition, anyway, the snow is always artificial," Chernyshenko said. The snow machines Sochi installed operate in 50 degrees fahrenheit or below.

"Mr. Putin told me Sochi has the best snow in the world, and I have no reason not to believe him," former Olympic ski champion Jean-Claude Killy, chair of the International Olympic Committee coordination commission for the Sochi games, told reporters last year.

http://geocurrents.info/cultural-geo...inter-olympics

“[Putin] has found one of the only places in Russia where there is no snow in the winter. He has decided to build these ice rinks in the warmest part of the warmest region. Sochi is subtropical. There is no tradition of skating or hockey there. In Sochi, we prefer football, and volleyball, and swimming. Other parts of Russia need ice palaces — we don’t.”

In terms of annual temperature range, Sochi is closely analogous to Portland, Oregon, as can be seen in the paired tables reproduced here. In the United States, the notion that Portland has a subtropical climate would seem quaint if not ludicrous.