Springtime in Vancouver one month ahead of Olympics (News Feature)

By Cord Heine Jan 12, 2010, 11:52 GMT

Vancouver - Vancouverites needed umbrellas rather than the popular red mittens on Tuesday as winter weather was far away one month ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony in the city.

Unseasonably high temperatures of 10 degrees celsius were forecast for the Pacific port city, with rain and gusty winds.

Even the resort of Whistler, which will stage the ski sport and sliding events during the February 12-28 Winter Olympics, has no sub-zero temperatures right now.

However, Whistler saw record snowfall in November which will easily survive the mild spell, and Vancouver itself has more rain than snow in most winters due to its sea-level location.

Tim Gayda, vice-president for sport in the organizing committee VANOC, is convinced that the unseasonably warm weather will be of no harm.

'We're putting everything we've learned and planned for regarding weather contingency into practice at the outdoor venues in order to be ready for the Games.

'Since the first snowfalls in Whistler and Cypress (Mountain) last fall we've been blowing snow and grooming our courses. As a precaution, we're also stockpiling snow to ensure we're ready no matter what the weather conditions are leading up to and during the Games,' he said.

'We're confident these courses will be in world-class shape when the athletes start to arrive to practise in our venues in the first week of February.'

Vancouver 2010 is the latest example of a Winter Olympics pattern in which the host city is a larger city which stages ice events held indoors. Ski events take place in nearby mountain resorts.

Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002 and Turin 2006 were also no city winter wonderlands like Lillehammer 1994, the last time the Olympics were held in a smaller place.

Whistler still has 2.40 metres of snow from an original 4m in November, and there is no major concern either that the freestyle and snowboard venue of Cypress Mountain was closed due to the rain on Monday and Tuesday.

Vancouver, meanwhile, was starting to counter the grey skies by starting to dress itself up for the Games. The first of some 6,000 blue-green flags with the Games motto 'With Glowing Hearts' and sports pictograms were being hung up across town.

The special-edition red mittens also add some colour, hugely popular with some 600,000 pairs sold by now.

This means that each inhabitant of the city area should have a pair, and they could come in handy when colder weather hits again as Vancouverites are being asked to use public transport or walk to work.

'Travel Smart' is the motto of the campaign to reduce traffic by 30 per cent for the Games.