By the end of February this year, the Italian Alps had stored 2.9 gigameters cubes (billion cubic meters, or bn) of water in the form of snow, compared with 4 gigameters cubes at the end of February 2022 and the median value of 8.7 bn cubic meters in 2011-21. This is according to a European Commission report on drought in Europe. Thus, an estimated 6 bn cubic gigameters of snow (according to the SWE, or Snow Water Equivalent) are missing from the long-term average. The peak of snow accumulation, which is set to melt in spring and feed streams and rivers, is early March. The lack of snow has had major consequences for winter tourism. In Italy, the percentage of slopes that resorted to artificial snow was as high as 90 percent, compared with 70 percent in Austria, 54 percent in Switzerland and 39 percent in France. The cost of producing artificial snow, due to the ongoing energy crisis, has increased significantly: to produce 2 cubic meters of it, in fact, it used to take about 2 euros compared to 5 euros now.