Cortina has lost 41 freezing days a year since it last hosted the Winter Olympics
February in Cortina has warmed 3.6°C since it last hosted in 1956. The health question in a warming winter is not comfort — it is unstable snow, artificial surfaces and where sport can safely be held.
Cortina d'Ampezzo last hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 [s1]. It hosts again this winter, and the seventy-year interval is long enough to function as a controlled comparison.
February temperatures in Cortina have risen 3.6°C in those 70 years [s1]. In Milan, the other half of the host pairing, February has warmed 3.2°C over the same period [s1]. Across all Winter Olympics host cities since 1950, the average warming is 2.7°C [s1].
Those figures sit against a global backdrop the WMO consolidated last week: 2025 came in at 1.44°C above the 1850–1900 baseline, and the past 11 years were the warmest on record in all eight datasets the agency tracks [s2]. Winter, at altitude, in the mid-latitudes, is warming faster than the global mean.
The number that matters is not the average
Mean temperature is a poor descriptor of whether winter sport works. What matters is how often the temperature sits below freezing, because that determines whether snow stays snow.
In Cortina, the count of annual freezing days has fallen from 214 in the decade 1956–1965 to 173 in 2016–2025 [s1]. That is a loss of 41 days a year, a 19 per cent decline [s1]. February snow depth in Cortina decreased by roughly 15 centimetres between 1971 and 2019 [s1].
The 2026 Games are expected to require more than 3 million cubic yards of artificial snow, despite a high-altitude Alpine setting [s1]. The 1956 Cortina Games used none [s1].
Why artificial snow is a health question
Artificial snow is usually discussed as an environmental cost — the water and energy that manufacturing 3 million cubic yards of it consumes [s1].
The athlete-facing question is separate and largely unanswered in public: whether a competition surface built from machine-made snow, in a winter warm enough to require 3 million cubic yards of it [s1], behaves the same way under a racer as natural snowpack does. No injury data from Milano Cortina exists — the Games have not been held. What can be said is that the quantity of snowmaking required is itself a consequence of the warming measured at these venues [s1], which makes surface conditions a downstream climate variable rather than an independent one.
That is the reason snowmaking belongs in a health conversation and not only an environmental one.
The forecast for these Games
Long-range forecasts give a 50 to 60 per cent chance of above-average temperatures in February at the host location, rising to 60 to 70 per cent for March [s1]. March matters because the Paralympic Games follow the Olympics.
That March figure is the structurally harder problem, and it recurs in the projections.
Where winter sport can be held after this
Climate Central's projections describe the constraint that will shape host selection for the rest of the century.
By the 2050s under a mid-range warming scenario, only 52 of 93 potential sites — 56 per cent — would have reliable conditions for the Winter Olympics [s1]. For the Winter Paralympics, held in March, the figure falls to 22 of 93 sites, or 24 per cent [s1]. Under a high-emissions scenario by the 2080s, just 4 of 93 sites would remain viable for the Paralympic Games [s1].
The gap between the Olympic and Paralympic numbers is the most under-discussed finding here. A three-week difference in calendar position roughly halves the number of viable venues, which means the Paralympic programme faces the constraint first and hardest.
What this is an index of
Elite sport is not the health story. It is a well-instrumented indicator of one.
The same loss of freezing days that forces snowmaking at a Games venue also shortens the season for recreational winter activity, shifts the altitude at which mountain communities can rely on a snow economy, and alters the seasonal patterns that determine when populations are physically active outdoors. Cortina has records going back seven decades because it is a resort. Most places do not.
What to watch
Two things over the coming weeks: whether the February forecast verifies, and what condition courses are in on competition days. Neither will be a scientific result. Both will be the most visible test yet of whether a high-altitude Alpine venue can still deliver a reliable winter.
Sources
- [s1] Milano Cortina 2026: Warming Winter Olympics. Climate Central, 21 January 2026. https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/2026-warming-winter-olympics
- [s2] WMO confirms 2025 was one of warmest years on record. World Meteorological Organization, 14 January 2026. https://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-confirms-2025-was-one-of-warmest-years-record
Sources
- Milano Cortina 2026: Warming Winter Olympics — Climate Central , January 21, 2026
- WMO confirms 2025 was one of warmest years on record — World Meteorological Organization , January 14, 2026
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